Ambassador Hassan Dana-ifar told reporters Sunday that aircraft inspections violate “diplomatic norms.” International law, however, authorizes a country to order any planes using its airspace to land and undergo inspection if there is a suspicion of any illegal cargo.
Under separate UN Security Council resolutions, Iran is forbidden to export arms and all countries are barred from sending arms to Syria.
On October 2, two days after announcing it would randomly inspect Iranian aircraft flying over Iraq, Baghdad ordered an Iran Air cargo plane to land in Baghdad for inspection. Iraqi officials said the inspection turned up no illegal cargo, and the plane was allowed to continue to Damascus.
Ambassador Danaifar said that inspection not only violated “diplomatic norms” but also “runs counter to the two states’ security agreements and air transportation treaty.” He didn’t cite specific articles he thought were being violated.
He threatened retaliation if Baghdad ordered any more inspections.
Danaifar did not say what Baghdad would do in response, however.
As of the Iran Times deadline Tuesday night, Baghdad had not ordered any more inspections.
In other developments regarding Iran and the civil war in Syria:
• Qatar’s prime minister acknowledged publicly that his government is supplying arms to Syrian rebels. Saudi Arabia is also understood to be arming the rebels, but has not acknowledged that. Iran is believed arming the Syrian government, but has repeatedly denied that. The United States has publicly announced the funds it is making available for the rebels and stated it is supplying non-lethal aid such as communications gear. Turkey is understood to be providing passage for aid to the rebels.
• Saudi Arabia has missed another meeting of the quartet invited by Egypt to try to find a solution to the Syrian civil war. The others in the quartet are Iran and Turkey. The Saudis attended the first ministerial gathering to discuss Syria, but has skipped the second and third. It has sent no lower ranking official to either meeting and has given no explanation for its absence.
• President Ahmadi-nejad told Al-Jazeera television that the solution to the Syrian challenge rested in elections.
• Ali-Akbar Velayati, the foreign policy adviser to the Supreme Leader, charged that NATO planned to use the recent mortar firings from Syria into Turkey as a pretext for invading Syria. “NATO is ready to issue a threat against Syria and intends to enter Syria under the pretext that one of the members of NATO, the neighboring country [Turkey], has been threatened.” He said, “The Americans seek to disturb stability in the region” and want to destroy the Syrian government because it is the pivot of the resistance to Israel.