President Catherine Connolly has said recent attacks in the Middle East are “deliberate assaults on international law”.
“We must name them as such, without euphemism and without equivocation,” she said in a statement on Sunday.
While not naming the US or Israel specifically, her comments are likely to be seen as an implicit rebuke to the Government, which has stopped short of saying the attacks on Iran have violated international law.
In a statement to mark International Women’s Day, Connolly said the “catastrophic consequences of violating the UN charter cannot be ignored”.
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“The violations of international law we are witnessing are shocking and numbing, but we cannot afford inaction,” the President said, adding that the events unfolding in the Middle East “are not political disputes”.
“They are deliberate assaults on international law, the international laws that have underpinned global peace for 80 years. We must name them as such, without euphemism and without equivocation.”
Connolly said Ireland is “uniquely positioned” to do that, pointing to the State’s peacekeeping history, and commitment to disarmament and non-proliferation, which she said stand as “testament to the disproportionate influence a small, neutral state can wield when it acts with integrity and purpose”.
She also pointed to Ireland’s history of colonisation, famine and the peaceful resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland, which she said “oblige us to speak plainly”.
[ China calls for immediate ceasefire in Iran and warns against regime changeOpens in new window ]
Saying that “the horror of war can never be normalised or accepted”, Connolly also pointed to Article 29 of the Constitution, which outlines devotion to peace and co-operation, adherence to the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes, and the principles of international law.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik said she strongly agreed with the statement issued by Connolly.
“As I have said this week, the failure of the Government to call out and condemn illegal strikes across the Middle East has been shameful,” she said. “Just this week, a girls’ school was bombed as part of the war being conducted by the US and Israel on Iran with hundreds of children killed as a result. Our Government must stand up and, as President Connolly has said, unequivocally condemn the violations of international law.”
Bacik said it is “entirely possible to condemn the tyrannical and repressive Iranian regime” while also insisting that international law must be upheld and multilateralism defended.
“I would urge the Taoiseach to heed the calls of President Connolly, and revisit the appropriateness of handing a bowl of shamrock to President Donald Trump in a little over a week.”
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy commended the President’s intervention.
“It’s vital that we have a President who stands clearly against war and imperialism. It’s shameful that we have a Government that refuses to do so,” he said on Sunday.
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said she was “pleased that someone in a position of authority in the State has finally named the horrific attacks on Iran by the United States and Israel as a clear breach of international law”.
“The United States and Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign, in Iran and Lebanon, is causing death, injury, displacement and devastation to hundreds and thousands of people,” she said. “More than 160 schoolgirls were massacred on the first day alone. It needs to end.”
Sinn Féin foreign affairs spokesman Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said the President had made “a statement of fact”.
“The United States and Israel are in breach of international law. We are a neutral state and it is important at moments like this to use our voice and influence in support of international law,” he said.
