TEHRAN- Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced on Friday the harassment of an Iranian passenger plane over Syria, calling on the international community to stop the U.S. “outlaws” before a disaster happens.

U.S. illegally occupies territory of another State and then harasses a scheduled civil airliner—endangering innocent civilian passengers—ostensibly to protect its occupation forces.

Audacity to compound lawlessness upon lawlessness

These outlaws must be stopped before disaster.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) July 24, 2020

“[the] U.S. illegally occupies territory of another State and then harasses a scheduled civil airliner—endangering innocent civilian passengers—ostensibly to protect its occupation forces. Audacity to compound lawlessness upon lawlessness. These outlaws must be stopped before disaster,” Zarif tweeted on Friday afternoon. 

Two U.S. warplanes dangerously came close to Mahan Air’s Airbus A310 passenger plane over Syria on Thursday, forcing the pilot to suddenly change altitude to avoid a collision. The plane was en route from Tehran to Beirut.  At least 12 people onboard were injured. Iran strongly denounced the U.S. move as a “terrorist act” and submitted a letter of complaint to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

“The harassment of an Iranian plane by U.S. warplanes should be met with condemnation of the U.S. Iran submitted its legal complaint to ICAO in black and white this morning,” Iran’s Minister of Transport and Urban Development Mohammad Eslami told IRNA.
He added, “Harassing a passenger plane is a terrorist act.”

PA/PA