After hearing a warning at the polarised Security Council\u2019s emergency meeting from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the \u201cMiddle East was on the brink,\u201d the only consensus was that there should be no further escalation of tensions there. \u201cThe message around the Council table was very, very clear that there should be no further escalation. Everybody agreed on this,\u201d Council President Vanessa Frazier told reporters after the meeting on Iran\u2019s thwarted massive attack on Israel.<\/p>\n
At the meeting convened hastily at Israel\u2019s request within 24 hours of Saturday\u2019s attack using barrages of missiles and fleets of drones, Israel and Iran traded charges, the US and Britain strongly condemned Iran, and Russia mounted a defence of Tehran. The Council immobilised by its divisions did not take any action and the meeting was only an occasion for venting. The opinions, however, coalesced around Guterres\u2019 call \u201cto step back from the brink.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is vital to avoid any action that could lead to major military confrontations on multiple fronts in the Middle East,\u201d he said briefing the Council on Iran\u2019s attack. \u201cThe people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict. Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate. Now is the time for maximum restraint,\u201d he said. The capture of the Israeli-owned ship, Aries, by Iran, came up during the meeting with several countries calling for the release of the crew, including Indians.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Permanent Representative Gilad Erdan asked the Council to not only condemn the attack but also to impose the strongest sanctions on Iran for going ahead with its nuclear programme. He said that almost all of the missiles and drones were destroyed by Israel and its allies before they could hit their targets, but the failure of the attack should not mean that Tehran is not punished for the attack.<\/p>\n
Holding up a video on his tablet, Erdan said it showed Israel neutralising missiles and drones over Jerusalem\u2019s Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest Muslim shrines and said that Tehran was targeting Islam\u2019s holy places in its quest for Shia domination. Iran\u2019s Permanent Representative Amir Saed Iravani said that Tehran was using its right to self-defence under the UN Charter to attack Israel after it had struck its diplomatic mission in Syria and killed its personnel.<\/p>\n
His country decided to attack Israel only because the Council did not act against it. US Deputy Representative Robert Wood said his country \u201cis not seeking escalation\u201d, but it \u201calso supports Israel\u2019s exercise of its inherent right to defend itself in the face of this attack.\u201d He said that a strong condemnation by the Council of Iran and its proxies is the surest way to prevent an escalation of tensions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Wood countered Iran\u2019s claims of self-defence listing several actions by it across the region and said, \u201cThese and other reckless Iranian actions, are not inherently defensive actions.\u201d Russia\u2019s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia accused the US and its allies of following a double standard when it came to Iran because they would consider an attack on a diplomatic mission a justification for war under international law.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor you everything that concerns Western missions and Western citizens is sacred and must be protected. But when it comes to other states, their citizens and their rights, including the right to self-defence, then it\u2019s different,\u201d he said. The West had blocked action on Israel\u2019s attack on the Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria, he said. \u201cWhat happened on the night of April 14 did not happen in a vacuum. Iran\u2019s steps were a response to the UN Security Council\u2019s shameful inaction on Israel\u2019s blatant attack on Damascus,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation in the Middle East has become as heated as it may get and the conflict risks escalating to a region-wide confrontation, so we call on all parties who were involved in the incident to exercise restraint,\u201d Nebenzia said. The Council has scheduled an open debate on the Palestine situation in which all member nations can participate on Thursday with the Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip that has seen more than 23,000 people killed crossing the half-year mark. Israel\u2019s attack was in retaliation for Hamas\u2019s terrorist strike on October 7 in which more than 1,200 people were killed and about 250 were taken hostage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After hearing a warning at the polarised Security Council\u2019s emergency meeting from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the \u201cMiddle East was\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":39848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[12869,7709,1380,12991,1418,12987,6691,504,1523,536,2128,8622,775,12990],"class_list":["post-39847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-attack-on-iranian-embassy-in-syria","tag-drone-attacks","tag-gaza","tag-iranian-ballistic-missile-strikes","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-israel-iran-tensions","tag-israeli-airstrikes","tag-middle-east","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-palestine","tag-tensions","tag-un-secretary-general-antonio-guterres","tag-unsc","tag-wider-regional-conflict"],"reading_time":"4 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}