France, the United Kingdom and Germany demanded this Friday, in a letter addressed to the UN, an “impartial” investigation into the Iranian drones supplied according to the West to Russia in its war against Ukraine.
An investigation by the UN Secretariat team responsible for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2231 would be welcome and we stand ready to support the work of the Secretariat to carry out its technical and impartial investigation. letter consulted by AFP and addressed to the Security Council and the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.
Resolution 2231 of 2015 frames the now moribund Iranian civil nuclear deal between Tehran, Russia, China, Germany, the UK and France, which at the time provided for a gradual lifting of economic sanctions against Iran.
Suspicions of Iranian support in Russia
In their letter, French ambassadors Nicolas de Rivière, Germany’s Antje Leendertse and Britain’s James Kariuki say they are “deeply concerned about the transfer of drones by Iran to Russia in violation of resolution 2231 (2015) of the Security Council, drones used by Russia in its war of aggression against Ukraine and in attacks on civilian infrastructure and Ukrainian cities, killing innocent civilians.”
Tehran has been accused for several days by the West of supplying suicide drones to Russia. The White House even said on Thursday that Iranian soldiers were in Crimea to help the Russians manage these devices launched against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and cities.
The European Union, which announced new sanctions against Iran, said this week that it had “sufficient evidence.”
Moscow and Tehran strongly deny
Believing that “it is now solidly documented that the Russian armed forces are using Iranian drones in Ukraine”, the French ambassador to the UN, Nicolas de Rivière, “called on Iran to immediately cease all forms of support for the war of aggression launched by Russia against Ukraine”. “.
Moscow and Tehran firmly denied, on Wednesday at the end of a closed-door meeting of the Security Council, any association on these weapons, the Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones.
“Today, Ukraine and its Western sponsors are once again trying to popularize disinformation about the alleged supply of Iranian drones to Russia,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia further thundered.
As his deputy Dmitry Polianski did this Wednesday at the UN, the Russian diplomat Nebenzia threatened the general secretariat in case of “participation in this dirty business” which would be a UN investigation into the drones launched against Ukraine.
Source: BFM TV
