LISBON, Oct 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Portuguese prosecutors said on Saturday they had opened a probe into the legality of the centre-right government\u2019s authorisation of the United States\u2019 use of \u200bthe Lajes Air Base in the Azores during \u200cthe Iran conflict, following a complaint by an opposition party.<\/p>\n
A longstanding agreement with the US allows Washington to use the base without prior authorisation during peacetime, but requires Portugal to give approval once hostilities begin.<\/p>\n
Portugal, unlike neighbouring \u200cSpain, \u200bauthorised several US transit flights through the \u2060Lajes air base, a \u2060decision that drew criticism from left-wing opposition parties and triggered a political debate over Lisbon\u2019s role in operations linked to the conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Prosecutor General\u2019s Office \u200bsaid \u201cthe probe was opened following a complaint filed by members of the Left Bloc party,\u201d without providing further details.<\/p>\n
Portugal\u2019s Foreign \u2060Ministry declined to comment.<\/p>\n
The Left Bloc \u2060asked prosecutors in April to investigate the US \u200buse of the Lajes base, arguing it amounted to a \u201cgross violation \u200bof international law.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel has said \u200cPortugal was not involved in the conflict and that the use of the Lajes base complied with international law, having been authorised only after assurances from Washington that any operation would be \u2060defensive, necessary and proportionate, and limited to military targets.<\/p>\n
Portugal\u2019s prosecutors are bound by the principle of legality, requiring them to investigate alleged wrongdoing \u2060when there are \u200csufficient grounds to do so, unlike in some \u2060jurisdictions where prosecutors have broader discretion to \u200bdecide whether \u200ca case should proceed.<\/p>\n
The Lajes base, located \u200bin Portugal\u2019s \u2060Atlantic Azores archipelago, is a strategic transit hub for US forces under a bilateral defence treaty dating back to 1951 and hosts the 65th Air Base Wing of the US Air Force, providing support for US, NATO and allied operations.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing \u200bby Toby Chopra)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISBON, Oct 3 (Reuters) \u2013 Portuguese prosecutors said on Saturday they had opened a probe into the legality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-869501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}