(Tehran) Iran protested Friday to the UN and international civil aviation against the “flagrant violation of international law”, after an Iranian airliner was approached dangerously overhead from Syria by American fighter planes.
Posted on 24 July 2020 to 07 h 14
Ahmad PARHIZI
France Media Agency
The incident that occurred on Thursday is a new episode in the strong tensions between the United States and Iran, enemy countries, which experienced a new peak after the unilateral withdrawal in 2018 from Donald Trump's administration of the international Iran nuclear deal and the reinstatement of US sanctions against Tehran.
The American Command Center, which oversees American operations in the Middle East, has confirmed that one of its F – 15 on a “routine air mission” had approached the Iranian plane over Syria, where the United States is maintaining troops.
During the night, Iranian public television broadcast a video of panicked passengers screaming as the airliner of the company Mahan Air on the Beirut-Tehran route seems to be trying to escape a fighter plane .
“The pilot of the commercial plane quickly reduced the altitude to avoid colliding with the fighter and several passengers were injured,” according to the television. In the footage, we see injured passengers, one with blood on his forehead and the other on the floor with a contorted face. Only one fighter plane is visible flying nearby.
According to the official Iranian press agency Irna, the pilots of the fighter planes “introduced themselves as Americans” during a conversation with the crew of the Mahan Air plane which was going from Tehran to Beirut .
At first, Iran accused Israel, another enemy country, of having tried to intercept the Iranian plane which finally landed without problem in Beirut, but the authorities in Tehran then pointed out finger the United States.
Investigation
Protest messages were sent to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which represents the interests of the United States in Iran in the absence of relations diplomatic relations between the two countries, said the spokesman for Iranian Foreign Affairs.
“If something happens to the plane on the way back, Iran will hold the United States responsible”, warned the spokesperson, Abbas Moussavi, quoted by the website of the Irna agency. .
The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization, for its part, issued a statement protesting against “the action of American fighter jets”, considering it “a flagrant violation of international law” and demanded an investigation emergency with ICAO.
According to Irna, the representative of Iran at the UN will soon write a letter “to the Security Council and to the Secretary General of the UN” to denounce “the threat posed to the passenger plane of Mahan Air “.
In a statement, the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, which is both an ally of the Syrian regime and of Iran, denounced “a terrorist act” carried out according to him by American fighter planes against a civilian plane Iranian.
“International Standards”
The American Command Center explained in a press release that an American F – 15 on a “routine air mission” had approached the Iranian plane.
“The visual inspection” was carried out at 1000 meters away and was carried out “in accordance with international standards”, according to the press release . “Once the pilot of F – 14 identified the plane as a Mahan Air passenger plane, he moved away from device in complete safety ”.
In Lebanon, a Lebanese security source said the Iranian plane had landed at Beirut airport. “There were four minor injuries among the passengers. “
In neighboring Syria, a country plagued by war, official media claimed that planes, presumably from the international coalition led by the United States, had approached the Iranian plane.