Nader Qazipour said on Friday that the Islamic Republic must respond to the US pressures exerted on Tehran’s neighbors to ground and inspect Iranian airplanes destined for Syria.
“American planes fly from Afghanistan to Iraq and from Iraq to Afghanistan across Iran’s air border and we expect the [Iranian] government to respond in kind to them (Americans),” he said.
On October 2, Iraq stopped and inspected a Damascus-bound Iranair cargo plane, which had taken off from Tehran due to an illegal US request, but allowed it to continue as no prohibited items were found on board.
Iran has dismissed as false the claims by the US officials that Tehran uses Iraqi airspace to send weapons to the Syrian government.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011.
Damascus says ‘outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists’ are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.
The Syrian government says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country and accuses Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey of arming the opposition.
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