Iran‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has declared that the country has the right to respond to Israeli airstrikes that hit Iranian military targets on Saturday local time.

The ministry condemned Israel’s strikes “against a number of military sites in Iran as a blatant violation of international law and the United Nations charter,” and its statement added, “based on the inherent right of self-defense, as also reflected in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, the Islamic Republic of Iran considers itself entitled and obliged to defend against acts of external aggression.”