US Should Admit Violating Iran’s Airspace: UN Spokesman

New York, Dec 10, IRNA -- US should be accountable toward violation of Iran's airspace, the UN official spokesman Martin Nesirky said on Friday. Nesirky made the remarks in an exclusive interview with IRNA correspondent in New York. "UN will investigate Iran's complaint on the violation of its airspace by a US spy drone," the official added. The Islamic Republic of Iran in a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, UN General Assembly and UN Security Council called for condemning the violation of Iran's airspace by the US spy drone while strongly criticizing the US government. Iran's Permanent Representative to UN Mohammad Khazaei in his letter to the heads of UN’s main bodies wrote that in continuation of US hostile moves against the country, a US RQ170 drone violated Iran’s airspace by penetrating 250 kilometers into the northern Tabas region that faced timely and strong reaction of the Iranian armed forces. “My government emphasizes the obvious and provocative violation of the US government is a hostile move and in evident contradiction to international law, particularly the basic principles of the UN charter,” Ambassador Khazaei wrote in his letter while mentioning Islamic Republic of Iran's previous letters to US government in this regard. Iran displayed an aircraft Thursday that it said was a US spy drone downed last week by an 'electronic ambush,' a feat that prompted boasts of Iranian technological prowess in the face of increased hostility from the West. Iranian state television used its main newscast to unveil the drone, identified as a stealth RQ-170 Sentinel made by Lockheed Martin. The drone was shown in a video at an undisclosed location where two men in military fatigues could be seen walking around it. The belly of the plane was covered with banners saying, 'We'll trample America underfoot' and 'the US cannot do a damn thing.' Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, chief of the aerospace division of Islamic Revolution's Guard Corps (IRGC), told state television that the drone was downed by a joint operation of IRGC and the country's Army. "After entering the country's eastern space, the plane was caught in an electronic ambush by the armed forces, and it was downed on the land with the minimum damage," Hajizadeh said. He said the drone is equipped with advanced systems for gathering electronic, visual and telecommunication information and possesses various radar systems. US officials said that while they have enough information to confirm that Iran does have the wreckage, they are not sure what the Iranians will be able to gain technologically from what they found. According to these officials, the US built up the air base in Shindand, Afghanistan, with an eye to keeping a long-term presence there to launch surveillance missions and even special spy missions into Iran if deemed necessary in the future. The RQ-170 is one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms in the CIA's fleet. RQ-170 drones have been used in stealth missions into the airspace of other nations, including Pakistan, where surveillance was conducted for months on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan before he was killed in a US raid in May./end