The Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Thursday to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the downing of an Iranian airliner by the United States, saying the crime would be etched in memories forever.
A US Navy guided missile cruiser shot down on July 3, 1988 Iran Air Flight 655, which was heading from Tehran to Dubai, in Iranian airspace over the country’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 passengers and crewmembers, including 66 children.
Expressing renewed sympathy with the families of the incident’s victims, the ministry described the missile attack as an “obvious violation of international law” by the US, according to a press release.
“The crime, as an example of state-sponsored terrorism by the US government, will remain in memories and belies the unfounded claims of the US in supporting human rights and the country’s disregard for international regulations.”
The US government refused to apologize for the incident, which was one of the deadliest plane crashes in aviation history, claiming that the crew had mistaken the Iranian Airbus A300 for an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter. The crash also retains the highest death toll of any aviation incident in the Persian Gulf.
The families of the people killed in the heartrending incident and other Iranians gather every year in the Persian Gulf near the site of the incident to remember the victims by throwing flowers into the waters of the Persian Gulf.
