Iran’s president warns Israel against any hostile action

TEHRAN – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi warned today that the armed forces would not let arch-foe Israel rest if it took action targeting the Islamic republic.

“You must know that if you try to take any action against the Iranian nation... our armed forces will not leave you in peace,” Raisi said, during a military parade to mark National Army Day.

His comments come days after he warned neighbouring Iraq against using its territory for activities that disrupt Iran’s security.

Last month, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the military’s ideological arm, said it fired a dozen ballistic missiles at a “strategic” site in Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region, claiming they were being used by Israel.

However, Arbil governor Oumid Khouchnaw dismissed as “baseless” the presence of Israeli sites in and around the city.

“There are no Israeli sites in the region,” he said at the time.

Also last month, Israel hosted talks attended by top Arab diplomats and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying the meeting would send a strong message to Tehran.

“This new architecture, the shared capabilities we are building, intimidates and deters our common enemies – first and foremost Iran and its proxies,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said at the end of the meeting in southern Israel.

The meeting came as world powers have been negotiating a way to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, to rein in its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Israel is adamantly opposed to the original deal and any effort to restore it.

The accord started to unravel in 2018 when then US president Donald Trump left the deal and re-instated sanctions, leading Iran to in turn step up its nuclear programme again.

On Thursday, the UN atomic energy watchdog said Iran has started to make components for machines used to enrich uranium at a new workshop in Natanz, the country’s main nuclear site.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said the new workshop replaces a nuclear facility in Karaj, near Tehran, after an attack there last year, which Iran said was an act of sabotage carried out by Israel. – AFP, April 18, 2022