BAGHDAD, July 8 (Xinhua) -- Iraq warned of using its airspace, namely by Israel, to strike neighboring countries, including carrying out airstrikes on vital targets in Iran, an Iraqi official newspaper reported on Wednesday.

    "Any Israeli violation of Iraqi national airspace would be considered as offense against Iraq," the state-run newspaper of al-Sabah quoted Hassan al-Senied, a member of the Iraqi parliamentary security and defense committee, as saying.

    Senied's remarks came after U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden signaled that Washington would not try to prevent any such Israeli assault.

    In an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Biden was asked whether the U.S. would stand in the way if Israel decided to wage a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, he said "look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do."

    "Iraq will take political, legal, diplomatic and defensive steps and will move internationally against any violation from any country," Senied, a Shiite, said.

    Meanwhile, Mohammed Naji, the executive secretary general of the leading Shiite alliance in the Iraqi parliament told the newspaper that the presence of U.S. forces on the Iraqi soil does not give Israel the right to use its airspace, according to the security pact that was signed late last year between Baghdad and Washington.

    Naji also confirmed that Iraq is not open for any other country, not only Israel, to be used as a route or a launch-pad of attacks against any neighboring country, according to the Iraqi constitution.