Iran takes European nations to task: ‘We do not need permission to retaliate against Israel’
The Cradle, August 13, 2024 —
The Iranian president and Foreign Ministry spokesman rejected Britain, France, and Germany’s request that Iran not retaliate against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a phone call that the silence of the international community in the face of Israel’s “unprecedented and inhumane crimes” in Gaza encouraged it to continue committing atrocities while threatening regional and global peace and security, IRNA reported on 13 August.
Pezeshkian added that war in any part of the world is not in the interest of any country while emphasizing that a “punitive response to an aggressor is a legal right of states and a way to stop crime and aggression.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani issued a similar message Tuesday, saying the Islamic Republic will defend its national security and sovereignty and does not ask for permission to exercise its rights.
Kanaani made the statement in response to a letter published by the UK, France, and Germany, urging Iran not to retaliate for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on 1 August.
Iran is also firmly determined to help establish permanent stability in the region and eliminate the main cause of terrorism and insecurity, Kanaani said.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman added that the three European countries have been indifferent to Israel’s continued “genocidal acts and war crimes against defenseless Palestinians.”
Kanaani criticized the UN and its Security Council for failing to prevent Israel from committing horrific crimes in Gaza for over 10 months.
He stated that the European nations’ request that Iran not respond to the Hamas leader’s assassination would “encourage the criminals to continue massacre, genocide, and crime against humanity.”
The spokesman said if those mentioned countries were really after peace and stability in the region, they should stand against Israel and seek to end the war on Gaza and the killing of children and women.
The US and Israel continue to brace for an Iranian retaliatory attack. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a guided missile submarine, the USS Georgia, to West Asia and accelerated the arrival of a carrier strike group to the region, the Pentagon said Sunday.
Amid the tension, talks for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas remain scheduled for this week.
Iran’s UN mission said it hopes that its attack on Israel “will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire.”
“Direct and intermediary official channels to exchange messages have always existed between Iran and the United States, the details of which both parties prefer to remain untold,” it added.