Mohammad Kowsari, deputy head of Iran Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said that Obama's request on Iran to return the RQ-170 spy drone was irrelevant and needed no answer.
“The incident is clear enough and the US offence is also quite evident,” Fars News Agency quoted him as saying on Tuesday.
The lawmaker added that the aircraft had entered Iran's airspace for espionage purposes and that the "Americans' measure to spy on Iran leaves no room for their request" on Tehran to return the drone.
“We have filed a lawsuit against America [with the UN] and are following up [on that suit],” he said.
Meanwhile, head of National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Alaeddin Boroujerdi stated on Tuesday that Iran will definitely not return the RQ-170 spy drone, and Washington has to compensate Tehran for violating the country's airspace.
Pointing to Obama's plea to Tehran to return the drone, the lawmaker added, “US President Barack] Obama is ignoring the fact that a spy drone has violated Iran's airspace and according to international law this is a violation [of the law].”
Boroujerdi emphasized that the US must “pay compensation for violating Iran's airspace,” in addition to apologizing to the Islamic Republic.
The US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft was brought down with minimal damage by the Iranian Army's electronic warfare unit on Sunday, December 4, 2011, when flying over the northeastern Iran city of Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) away from the Afghan border.
Following days of silence on the capture and unveiling of spy drone by Iranian armed forces, US President Barack Obama said on Monday that Washington has asked Tehran to return the US reconnaissance drone.
“We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond,” Obama said in a news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Washington.
The RQ-170 is an unmanned stealth aircraft designed and developed by the Lockheed Martin Company.
Iran has announced that it intends to carry out reverse engineering on the aircraft, which is similar in design to a US Air Force B2 stealth bomber.
Tehran says that the US drone spy mission was a “hostile act,” adding that it will lodge a complaint with the United Nations over the violation of its air sovereignty by the intelligence gathering aircraft.
Iranian Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei on December 8 called on the world body to condemn US aggressive moves against the Islamic Republic with respect to the reconnaissance drone that violated the Iranian airspace.
He made the plea in a letter sent to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz a-Nasser, and Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN ambassador who holds the rotating Security Council presidency for December.
press tv/281
Following US President Barack Obama's formal plea to Tehran to return a US spy drone downed by Iran's armed forces last week, a senior Iranian lawmaker says Obama's plea is “irrelevant.”
News ID 181275
