Helen McEntee say Government agrees with president's comments on Middle East conflict

Foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee did not herself label US or Israeli actions in the Middle East as breaching international law.

Foreign affairs minister Helen McEntee has said both she and the Government agrees with President Catherine Connolly's description of recent events in the Middle East as a “breach of international law”.

However, pressed several times, Ms McEntee did not herself label US or Israeli actions in the Middle East as breaching international law.

"I’ve agreed with what President Connolly has said. The Government agreed with what she said. She hasn’t said anything different to what we have said very clearly.

“She's said in last few days everybody should uphold international law. She hasn't singled out any individual country and individual state. She's been very clear that Ireland has signed up to this and that we need to adhere to it.” 

In a speech to mark International Women’s Day, President Connolly — while not singling out the US or Israel — said what has been witnessed in the Middle East since the two countries began striking Iran, provoking a fierce retaliation, were “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,” she said.

Ahead of the visit of Taoiseach Micheál Martin to the White House, members of the Government have stopped short of saying actions such as the bombing of a school in Iran have breached international law.

Furthermore, an official spokesperson said responsibility for Ireland’s handling of foreign affairs “rests with” the Government, not the president.

Ms McEntee said she believed “everybody is saying the same thing here”.

“We can fixate and focus on a way in which something has been said, or we can actually focus on what Ireland is saying that is ‘we have to de-escalate, that violence is not the way forward’ and the attack on the school is wrong and shouldn’t have happened in the way the attack on a family in the West Bank [on Sunday] is shameful and shouldn’t have happened.

“I mean, our relationship with the US is a really important one. 

"That doesn't mean that we can't call it out when we believe that things are wrong. And I mean the attack on a school, intentional or otherwise, should not happen, irrespective of where it comes from. So I can't be any clearer than that.”