Iranian president accuses Israel of seeking wider regional war

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

Iran’s new president accused Israel yesterday [Macau time] of seeking a wider war in the Middle East and laying “traps” to lead his country into a broader conflict.

Masoud Pezeshkian told about two dozen media representatives that Iran doesn’t want to see the current war in Gaza and airstrikes across the Israeli-Lebanon border expanded.

“We don’t want to fight,” he said. “It’s Israel that wants to drag everyone into war and destabilize the region. … They are dragging us to a point where we do not wish to go.”

Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon and reformer, defeated a hardliner in Iran’s July presidential runoff, after the death of the former president in a helicopter crash. He is making his debut on the international stage at this week’s annual gathering of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, just as Israel steps up attacks on Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The Iranian leader, who will turn 70 on Sunday, said that while Israel insists it doesn’t want a wider war, i ts actions show otherwise. Pezeshkian pointed to the deadly explosions of pagers, walkie-talkies and other electronic devices in Lebanon last week, which he blamed on Israel, and the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, hours after Pezeshkian’s inauguration.

Pezeshkian said the Iranian drone and missile attacks on Israel in April, in response to attack on an Iranian consular building in Syria’s capital that Tehran blamed on Israel, proved its defensive capabilities.

He said Iran is not seeking to destabilize the Middle East. “We are willing to put all our weapons aside so long as Israel is willing to do the same,” he said.

On Russia and Ukraine

Two weeks ago, the United States and Britain formally accused Iran of supplying short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to use against Ukraine and announced new sanctions on Moscow and Tehran before a joint visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats.

Pezeshkian insisted that Iran has not and will not supply Russia with ballistic missiles to attack Ukraine. “We have never approved of Russia’s aggression against Ukrainian territory,” he said, adding that the two countries should establish a dialogue.

On Iran’s nuclear program

The president was asked about Iran’s nuclear program following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from its 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany. It has seen Tehran expand its uranium enrichment from 3.67% purity under the deal to 60% purity, making many countries in the West nervous that it is seeking to make a nuclear weapon.

Would Iran go back to low-enriched uranium and give up its stockpile of high enriched uranium if the nuclear deal is restored?

Pezeshkian said weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran and its military structures.

“We are still ready to live up to the same framework” that was agreed on in 2015, he said, but the Europeans tried to get Iran to sign a different accord.

He said Iran is willing to sit down with Europeans and Americans to negotiate.

On Israel and Gaza

Pezeshkian was asked if Iran had advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

“The Americans know, and Israel is very well aware that Iran was not aware,” he replied.

Israel says it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas.

Pezeshkian also accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza by attacking schools, hospitals and homes. He defended Iran’s support for the Palestinians and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants, saying his country “will not stand by to oppression and injustice.”

Israel’s nearly year-long retaliation has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

On the U.S. presidential election

Pezeshkian responded to America’s top intelligence official Avril Haines, who said in July that the Iranian government is covertly encouraging American protests over the war in Gaza in a bid to stoke outrage ahead of the November presidential election.

“Please don’t believe these things – they’re childish,” he said.

On the captivity of a Nobel Peace Prize winner

When a reporter asked if Iran would free Narges Mohammadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her activism including for women’s rights, Pezeshkian said there are four women ministers in his administration. And if the Western media is so concerned about human rights, he asked, “Why are you not screaming about what is going on in Gaza?” EDITH M. LEDERER, UNITED NATIONS, MDT/AP