Former FM urges Iran not to get lured into war with Israel

Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is urging his country not to become embroiled in a direct war with Israel or the US.

The best way to defend the Palestinian people was to avoid giving the West a reason to claim they are acting as a proxy of Iran, Zarif said, adding that Israel was trying to lure Iran into such a battle, according to The Guardian.

In two interventions that have led to charges of betrayal, and in a passionate defence of his views, Zarif said the Iranian people accepted the idea of defending what is right, but that this did not mean mobilising the army.

Referencing the cost of Iran’s military interventions, he claimed that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, “seeks to drag Iran to the Gaza battlefield, while they have no proof of Iran’s involvement in the al-Aqsa storm,” he said, using Hamas’s name for the 7 October attacks in which the militant group killed approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel, leading to Israel’s military invasion of Gaza.

“If such an event happens, ordinary people are the first victims in any war. I personally think that the people are tired of paying the cost. There is also no need for us to incur the cost.”