Iran is demanding that all members of the NATO alliance who participated in the US-Israeli war against the country earlier this year be held accountable for war crimes and other violations of international law.
The demand followed the recent admission by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about the role of European countries during the US-Israeli war in Iran, which began on 28 February and ended with a ceasefire on 8 April.
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Rutte admitted that thousands of aircraft took off from US bases in various European countries during the US-Israeli aggression in Iran.
“Country after country, ally after ally have made their bases available.” Rutte described “between 4,000 to 5,000 planes taking off from European bases to support Epic Fury.” He was responding to complaints about the underwhelming support of NATO members during the US war efforts in Iran.
Rutte repeated those comments during his meeting with US President Donald Trump later in the day.
However, Trump still looked unimpressed with Rutte’s claims. He expressed his displeasure at the European role and publicly questioned NATO’s contributions to his war efforts, claiming that he was disappointed with most of them.
Italy refutes Rutte’s claims.
Rutte specifically named Italy and Romania, citing them as examples of European support for the US war in Iran officially termed Operation Epic Fury.
“If you look at Italy, 500 planes took off from US bases in Italy to support Epic Fury,” Rutte claimed, putting Italy’s right-wing government in an awkward position given its public stance of opposition to the war.
Italy is home to over a hundred US military installations, including a large naval base in Sicily and an air base in the northern region.
However, the right-wing government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had officially distanced itself from the US war efforts, largely due to the strong popular sentiment against the war in the country.
Italy has witnessed large public protests and strikes carried out mostly by workers against any involvement in Israeli wars in Palestine, Lebanon, or US-Israeli attacks in Iran in the last few months.
Rutte’s claims about Italy have now created a massive backlash in the country, with the opposition seeking fresh explanations from the government.
On Wednesday, the Meloni government refuted Rutte’s claims, calling them “misleading.”
“As already clarified in the parliament, the government authorised exclusively technical and logistical, non-kinetic activities,” Italy’s defence minister Guido Crosetto was reported saying.
Crosetto also claimed that Rutte was confusing “authorised support flights with combat-related operations,” claiming their involvement was purely limited to “technical and logistical support.”
Crosetto claimed that Italy’s actions did not violate any international laws and its acts were as per the arrangements made under its constitution and agreements with its allies, Reuters reported.
Damning admission of NATO’s complicity
Esmail Baghaei, official spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, raised the issue of accountability in a social media post on Thursday, 25 June.
Baghaei called Rutte’s comments a “clear and damning admission of NATO’s active complicity in an unlawful war of aggression against a sovereign UN member state—a flagrant violation of international law and the core principles of the UN Charter.”
Along with Italy and Romania, which were named by Rutte, “every other European country that has assisted the US-Israeli aggression against Iran must explain to their own people and to the world why they chose to collude in this blatant act of aggression and in the commission of mass atrocities against Iranian people,” Baghaei insisted.
More than 3,300 Iranians, including hundreds of children and its top political and military leadership, among others, were killed in the US-Israeli strikes, which went on for nearly 40 days.
The indiscriminate bombings carried out by the US and Israel destroyed hundreds of schools, university campuses, science laboratories, sports complexes, and other civilian infrastructure as well as medical facilities in the country, apart from crippling the global economy after Iran imposed restrictions on trade through the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation.
One such US strike on an elementary school in Minab killed over 160 school girls during the first hours of the war, creating global outrage and allegations of war crimes.
“The organisation [NATO] and its individual member states that participated in such decision-making must be held accountable for all the consequences,” Baghaei said.
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