NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- Iran’s ambassador to the United 
Nations has strongly condemned “unlawful” and “terror-inciting” U.S. and Israeli threats against Leader of the Islamic Revolution Seyyed Ali Khamenei, urging the UN to recognize such threats as illegal, irresponsible, and terrorist in nature.
In a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general, the UN Security Council, and the General Assembly president, Amir Saeid Iravani called upon the international organization to take necessary measures to hold those responsible for such internationally unlawful actions accountable.
These officials have “openly and repeatedly threatened the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran with assassinations,” read the letter.
According to the letter, war minister Israel Katz threatened Ayatollah Khamenei during an interview with Israeli media on June 26, revealing the regime’s assassination plots.
“The U.S. and the Zionist regime of Israel have openly threatened to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader. This criminal act constitutes a manifest instance of State terrorism; and, the very gravity of such a threat must not be permitted to be diminished or normalized in any manner whatsoever,” Iravani said. 
This “criminal and provocative rhetoric” was made in complete coordination with equally provocative statements by U.S. President Donald Trump, first on June 18 and again on Friday.
Trump described Iran’s Leader as an “easy target”, saying “we are not going to take him out— at least not for now”, while claiming to have prevented either the Israeli regime or U.S. armed forces from ending his life. 
“Iran, while reserving its inherent right to exercise self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, calls upon the Secretary-General and the Security Council to condemn in the strongest possible terms these assassination threats, which constitute a blatant violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, and to deem such statements illegal, irresponsible, and terrorist in nature,” it said.
“Such reckless and deliberate threats by senior officials constitute a serious violation of the Charter of the United Nations, particularly Article 2 (4), which unequivocally prohibits both the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State,” the letter said.
“Such threats set a dangerous precedent by seeking to normalize assassination as a tool of foreign