Iran rejects Western calls to avoid retaliation against Israel

Iran has dismissed calls from the UK and other Western countries to refrain from retaliating against Israel for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Amid a flurry of international diplomacy aimed at de-escalating tensions, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a rare telephone conversation on Monday to “stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack.”

However, President Pezeshkian stated that retaliation was a “way to stop crime” and Iran’s “legal right,” according to Iranian state media. Although Israel has not confirmed involvement in Haniyeh’s assassination, it has put its military on its highest alert level.

The US has warned that it is preparing for “a significant set of attacks” by Iran or its proxies as early as this week and has increased its military presence in the Middle East to help defend Israel. The powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement in Lebanon has also threatened to retaliate over Israel’s killing of one of its top commanders in an airstrike in Beirut.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken postponed plans to travel to the Middle East on Tuesday to participate in talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza.

On Monday evening, the leaders of the UK, France, and Germany issued a joint statement urging Iran and its allies to “refrain from attacks that would further escalate regional tensions.”

“They will bear responsibility for actions that jeopardize this opportunity for peace and stability,” Prime Minister Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in the statement.

Later, the British prime minister expressed his deep concerns directly to Iran’s president by telephone—the first such call since March 2021. Starmer warned Pezeshkian that “there was a serious risk of miscalculation and now was the time for calm and careful consideration,” according to Downing Street. He added that “war was not in anyone’s interests.”

On Tuesday morning, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported that Pezeshkian had told Starmer that Western countries’ support for Israel had encouraged it to “continue atrocities” and threatened peace and security. Pezeshkian emphasized that, from Iran’s perspective, “war in any part of the world is not in the interest of any country,” and that a punitive response to an aggressor is a legal right and a means to stop crime and aggression, according to IRNA.

The Iranian foreign ministry separately rejected the call for restraint from London, Paris, and Berlin. Spokesman Nasser Kaanani stated that “such demands are void of political logic, in complete contradiction to the principles and rules of international law, and excessive.”

The Israeli military announced on Monday that it was taking Iran’s statements seriously. “We are at peak readiness in offense and defense, and we will act according to the government’s directives,” said military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari during a briefing.

An Israeli government spokesman also warned Iran and its allies that Israel would “exact a heavy price for any aggression against us from any arena.”

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “We share the same concerns and expectations as our Israeli counterparts regarding the potential timing here. [It] could be this week.” He added, “It is difficult to ascertain at this particular time what an attack by Iran or its proxies could look like, but we have to be prepared.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has dispatched a second aircraft carrier strike group, as well as a guided missile submarine, to the Middle East to reinforce what the Pentagon described as the “United States’ commitment to taking every possible step to defend Israel.”

The US believes that a new ceasefire deal in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages would be the best way to calm tensions in the region and has called for talks to resume on Thursday. Israel has indicated that it will send a team of negotiators to finalize a deal, while Hamas has expressed willingness in principle to participate, despite the killing of its leader.

Hamas stated on Sunday that any deal must be based on where talks stood a month and a half ago, rather than initiating new rounds of negotiations. Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

Since then, more than 39,920 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. Hundreds more have been killed in the near-daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli military across the Israel-Lebanon border since the conflict began.

Credit: BBC