WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran told the United Nations Security Council and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday that it reserves its right to self-defense under international law after the United States killed Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Iranian U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi wrote in a letter that the killing of Soleimani “by any measure, is an obvious example of State terrorism and, as a criminal act, constitutes a gross violation of the fundamental principles of international law, including, in particular, those stipulated in the Charter of the United Nations.”