Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed on Monday that Iran “will not be the first in any war, but it will strongly defend its sovereignty,” warning that any military attack on his country “will not limit its effects to both sides,” stressing that the Iranian people “will firmly confront any conspiracy.”
During his participation in a meeting on human rights at the United Nations headquarters, Gharibabadi stated that “enemies may be able to start a war against Iran, but they will not be able to end it,” considering that previous experiences showed that “Iran’s enemies were defeated in their aggression, so they resorted to paving the way for another military aggression by inciting chaos and unrest and confiscating peaceful protests.”
He added that “the effects of any war against Iran will not be limited to the two sides of the confrontation,” stressing that “Iran and the Iranian people will stand firmly in the face of any plan targeting the country’s security and stability,” and that Tehran “will defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity by all available means.”
Gharibabadi’s statements come amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, coinciding with faltering diplomatic efforts related to the Iranian nuclear program, and increasing fears of the region sliding into a broader conflict.
In a related context, a senior American official told Axios on Tuesday that the United States is ready to hold a new round of talks with Iran next Thursday in Geneva, “if it receives a detailed Iranian proposal regarding a nuclear agreement within the next 48 hours.”
These mutual statements are interpreted as reflecting a delicate balance between the threat to use force and the effort to keep channels of dialogue open, in a climate of increasing military build-up and political tension in the region.
