In a protest letter addressed to UN Security Council chairman Antonio Guterres, Iraq denounced Israel’s use of its airspace to attack neighbouring Iran, Baghdad stated.
“The letter denounces the Zionist entity’s flagrant violation of Iraq’s airspace and sovereignty by using Iraqi airspace to carry out an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on October 26,” according to a statement from government spokesman Bassim Alawadi.
The foreign ministry of Iraq will also discuss “this violation” with the United States, Israel’s closest friend and largest arms supplier, according to Alawadi.
More than a year into the war in Gaza and a month into the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon, Israel threatened to escalate the situation in the area by launching airstrikes on Iranian military targets on Saturday.
The Israeli raid was a response to an October 1 Iranian missile attack, which was retaliatory for the murder of a Revolutionary Guards commander and terrorist commanders supported by Iran.
The Iranian military claimed that a “small number of long-range missiles… from a distance” were fired by some Israeli aircraft within US-patrolled Iraqi airspace.
Tehran was “sure that no neighbouring country has given this permission to the Zionist regime” to use its airspace, spokesperson for the Iranian foreign ministry Esmaeil Baghaei stated on Monday.
“We certainly hope that our friends in Iraq will announce the necessary reactions, including by registering their protest with the United Nations, and will not allow such incidents to happen again,” Baghaei added.
Baghdad has close ties with Tehran but also a strategic partnership with Washington, which has troops in Iraq as part of an international anti-jihadist coalition.
While the Iraqi government has sought to avoid being dragged into the escalating regional conflict, some pro-Iran factions have launched attacks on US forces in the region and claimed responsibility for drones sent to Israel.
One Tehran-aligned group, the influential Kataeb Hezbollah, condemned on Sunday the Israeli use of Iraqi airspace to attack Iran as a “dangerous precedent”.
It accused the United States of being complicit in the Israeli attack, warning both of a response to this “aggression”.
