President Catherine Connolly has said the situation unfolding in the Middle East amounts to a “deliberate assault on international law”, reports RTE.
Her remarks come as the conflict involving the United States and Israel against Iran has entered its second week, reports RTE.
President Connolly said that “violations of the UN Charter cannot be ignored” and described the developments currently being seen as “shocking and numbing”.
Her comments were made in a statement issued to mark International Women’s Day, reports RTE.
In the statement, President Connolly said: “What we have witnessed in recent days in the Middle East, and beyond, are not political disputes.
“They are deliberate assaults on international law, the international laws that have underpinned global peace for 80 years, reports RTE.
“We must name them as such, without euphemism and without equivocation,” reports RTE.
She added that Ireland is “uniquely positioned” to speak out about peace and can assist those who are working to achieve it.
“Our unbroken record of international peacekeeping since 1958, and our decades of commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation, stand as testament to the disproportionate influence a small, neutral state can wield when it acts with integrity and purpose. And our history of colonisation, famine, and the hard-won, peaceful resolution of conflict in the North oblige us to speak plainly,” she said, reports RTE.
“On International Women’s Day, let us reflect on these solemn commitments which we have made in our nation’s Constitution and take every action we can to support the United Nations and all those working to build peace in a time when so many distort language to justify and normalise war,” President Connolly added, reports RTE.
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