UNITED NATIONS — Iran is urging the United Nations to hold the United States accountable for the interception of an Iranian passenger plane by two U.S. fighter jets in the skies over Syria last month, which it called “unlawful” and an “adventuristic act.”
Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Majid Takht Ravanchi, said in letters to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the U.N. Security Council circulated Friday that Iran “expresses its strongest objections against this violation of international law and will pursue the issue through relevant international bodies.”
Ravanchi said a Mahan Airlines Airbus A310 en route from Tehran to Beirut on July 23 “was aggressively and unexpectedly intercepted” by two U.S. F-15 fighter jets while traveling through internationally specified corridors in Syria’s airspace.
U.S. Navy Capt. Bill Urban, a Central Command spokesman, told The Associated Press at the time of the incident that a U.S. F-15 “conducted a standard visual inspection” of the Iranian plane “at a safe distance of approximately 3,280 feet from the airliner.”