Iran president says Teheran has no intention of hitting neighbours
The president has apologised to neighbouring countries for “being attacked by Iran”
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[DUBAI] Iran’s president said that he has instructed the military not to attack any country that is not striking the Islamic Republic, even as projectiles continued to be fired at the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states.
Masoud Pezeshkian said in a speech on Saturday (Mar 7) that Iran’s interim leadership council had taken the decision a day earlier. Yet there was no sign of Iranian forces easing off their strikes on Arab states, none of which have joined the week-long US-Israel bombardment of the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s armed forces have been instructed “not to attack or launch missiles at neighbouring countries unless attacked from there”, Pezeshkian said. He apologised to neighbouring countries for “being attacked by Iran”.
“We have no intention of attacking neighbouring countries,” he added, calling them “our brothers”.
Around the same time that he spoke, sirens and missile alerts went off in Bahrain and Qatar. In Dubai, Emirates suspended flights after another round of projectiles disrupted the operations of the world’s largest international airline. A short time later, it said that it was resuming operations.
“We must resolve this situation through diplomacy rather than fighting with neighbouring countries,” Pezeshkian said. “The idea that we would surrender unconditionally, they must take such a dream to the grave.”
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Pezeshkian sits on the three-man interim leadership council after the US and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a week ago. It’s unclear how much control he and the other two members – senior cleric Ayatollah Alireza Arafi and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the judiciary – have over the Iranian military right now.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia has stepped up direct engagement with Iran to try and contain a war that is causing havoc in the Middle East and stressing global markets. BLOOMBERG
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