Editorial
Iran's top diplomat, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, revealed to the FT that Tehran had warned the United States that it did not want a regional widening of the war between Israel and Hamas, however he also warned Washington that regional conflict could be inevitable if Israel continues its indiscriminate attacks on the Strip.
Amirabdollahian confirmed that “over the past 40 days there have been exchanges of messages between Iran and the United States, through the US interests section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran. We have said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but due to the approach taken by the United States and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be taken into consideration and a wider conflict may prove inevitable.".
"Iran, the minister stated, had not been informed in advance of the devastating Hamas attack on Israel on October 7“, a position also confirmed by US officials.
However, the West holds Iran responsible for supporting “resistance” groups against the Jewish state – including Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah – which Iran considers pillars in its regional security strategy.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Amirabdollahian has undertaken intense diplomatic activity, traveling to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. He also met the head of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh in Doha and the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah. Amirabdollahian denied that Hezbollah and other Islamist militants in the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Syria and Yemen are proxy forces for Iran, saying each has an independent political identity. But he warned that the groups “they are not indifferent to the killing of their Muslim and Arab brothers in Palestine”.
Amirabdollahian then said that the United States did not threaten to strike Iran if Hezbollah launched an all-out assault on Israel. But he accused Washington that on the one hand it invites Tehran "to exercise moderation" on the other, it supports the war in Gaza with significant political and military support for Israel.
He said that US messages to Hezbollah, calling for restraint, “they will not be able to make the resistance group cautious in its decisions”. He then added: “Our military officials are of the opinion that the deployment of US aircraft carriers near our region, making them accessible, is not a strong point for the United States. Indeed, it makes them more vulnerable to possible attacks". "The war has already spread to the region", he added. “The fact that the Yemeni army (Houthi movement supported by Iran ed)… attacks on the occupied lands with missiles and drones means that the war has begun to spread. The fact that Hezbollah is fighting with a third of the Israeli army shows that the war has expanded".
The Iranian president Ebrahim raisi met the crown prince last weekend Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, marking an absolute novelty in the Muslim panorama: the most significant representatives of the Shiites and Sunnis were seen and spoken to. He also met the Egyptian president for the first time Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, on the occasion of a summit in Riyadh of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Gaza, a unique meeting between the leaders of the two countries, which have never had consolidated diplomatic relations.
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