SCOTLAND could become complicit in war crimes by allowing Prestwick Airport to be used by US Air Force jets, Humza Yousaf has warned.
The Ayrshire airport is government-owned, with the former first minister’s intervention coming after dozens of US jets touched down at the facility last week.
Yousaf made the comments in an interview with the Sunday Mail before US President Donald Trump attacked Iranian nuclear bases in a heavily criticised intervention.
The Glasgow Pollock MSP called on First Minister John Swinney to distance himself from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and “illegal” strikes on Tehran.
“I would hope the Scottish Government would take advice on its legal obligations and that includes planes refuelling at Prestwick,” he told the newspaper.
"Scotland, including through the use of our publicly owned assets such as Prestwick, cannot be complicit.
“The Scottish Government should be doing everything within its power to distance itself from Israel’s illegal military actions, whether it’s the assets we own, the limited foreign interventions we can make…Whatever we can do, we should be doing because this is the moral question of our time."
US military aircraft have stopped at Prestwick 39 times since the start of June.
“If the US decides to join Israel and illegally strike Iran, it won’t just have regional impacts but global ramifications as well," he said.
Yousaf added: “The UK should have nothing to do with any strikes on Iran, they should be leading the diplomatic effort, getting people round the table for diplomacy to prevail, to allow agreement and not air strikes to pave the way forward.”
The former first minister pointed out that thousands of Palestinians have been "murdered including when queuing for food" in Gaza.
“The second reason [for the strikes] is to quite literally blow up the talks taking place between Iran and the United States," he said.
“The strike was three days before the US and Iran were due to have talks about the nuclear programme. It’s not just illegal, it’s deeply cynical, shameful and I can’t understand why anyone would seek to defend it.”
Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson said: “The First Minister has been clear that Israel’s actions are beyond any justification and there must be action to bring them to account.”
In the days following Israel’s first strikes against Iran, the US sent dozens of military aircraft across Europe - including Prestwick.
It comes as the US attacked three sites in Iran including the Fordo facility, which is buried deep underground.
Trump said the key nuclear sites had been “completely and fully obliterated”.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi warned the attacks “will have everlasting consequences” and that Tehran “reserves all options” to retaliate.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Swinney have both called for a return to diplomacy in the wake of the attacks.
However, Starmer’s comments were dubbed “gaslighting” by furious politicians and social media users.
Earlier, Cabinet minister Jonathan Reynolds would not say the UK supported the military action nor whether he believed the US strikes were legal.
Asked on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg if the US action was a good thing, he said: “The outcome. It isn’t the means by which anyone in the British Government would have wanted to see this occur.”
Pushed on whether the US strike was legal, he said: “It is where we are today.”
He said it would be “naive” to think the risk of Iranian-backed terrorism in the UK will not increase as a result of the US and Israeli action.
The US attacked Fordo, Isfahan and Natanz which are linked to Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Tehran regime has insisted its nuclear programme is peaceful but its uranium enrichment process has gone far beyond what is required for power stations.
