TEHRAN - The Iranian ambassador to China on Saturday condemned U.S. for assassinating IRGC Quds Force commander, noting that such unwise acts are threatening international peace and stability.

Mohammad Keshavarzzadeh described the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani by the U.S. as violation of international law and the United Nations Charter.

The envoy highlighted that the assassination is now at the center of worldwide attention and protests.

“Assassination of Soleimani by armed forces under the direction of the U.S. president is an obvious example of state terrorism and, as a criminal act, constitutes a gross violation of the fundamental principles of international law, including those stipulated in the UN Charter,” Keshavarzzadeh explained.

“Soleimani was at the heart of the Iran government’s efforts to help – in response to requests from some governments in the region – fight the so-called Islamic State militant group, better known as the ISIL, which the United Nations Security Council designates as a terrorist group,” the ambassador asserted.

General Soleimani was assassinated in U.S. air raids near the Baghdad international airport on January 3. It was an act of war against Iran.

Soleimani had gone to Baghdad to deliver a message to the Iraqi prime minister who is seeking to reduce tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. airstrikes also martyred Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) and some other forces of the PMU along with their guests.

In retaliation to the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) fired dozens of ballistic missiles at the U.S. Ain al-Assad airbase in southwestern Iraq on January 8. 

Top Iranian political and military figures had vowed “harsh revenge” for the martyrdom of General Soleimani.

Iran targeted the airbase from which the U.S. had flown drones to assassinate Soleimani. 

Photos released by media outlets show that the airbase, the biggest run by the U.S. in western Iraq, has suffered great damages.

By targeting the military base, Iran became the first country to take military action against the U.S. since the Second World War.

U.S. military sources said on Thursday that eleven American troops were treated for concussions after Iranian missiles strike.

The U.S. assassination of General Soleimani was met with widespread condemnation across the globe.

Benjamin B. Ferencz, a former lawyer and Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor, has said the assassination was an “immoral action” and a “clear violation of national and international law.”

“The administration recently announced that, on orders of the president, the United States had “taken out” (which really means “murdered”) an important military leader of a country with which we were not at war. As a Harvard Law School graduate who has written extensively on the subject, I view such immoral acts as a clear violation of national and international law,” Ferencz wrote in a letter to The New York Times on Wednesday.

Ferencz, 99, who was a lawyer who helped prosecute Nazi leaders at the post-World War II Nuremberg trials, said, “The public is entitled to know the truth. The United Nations Charter, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are all being bypassed. In this cyberspace world, young people everywhere are in mortal danger unless we change the hearts and minds of those who seem to prefer war to law.”

MJ/PA