Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned of a wider escalation if his country was attacked, after US President Donald Trump raised the threat of strikes. <\/p>\n
Trump has sent a major deployment of air and sea power to the Middle East and has threatened to strike Iran if it does not reach a deal on key concerns starting with its nuclear program. <\/p>\n
“We call upon all nations committed to peace and justice to take meaningful steps to prevent further escalation,” Gharibabadi said at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. <\/p>\n
“The consequences of any renewed aggression wouldn’t remain confined to one country — and responsibility would rest with those who initiate or support such actions.” <\/p>\n
Iranian and US negotiators held indirect talks in Geneva last week on Tehran’s nuclear program, hosted by Oman. <\/p>\n
A fresh round of talks in the Swiss city this Thursday has been confirmed by Muscat, though not by Washington. <\/p>\n
“Iran remains committed to diplomacy and dialogue as the most effective path towards de-escalation and sustainable security,” Gharibabadi said. <\/p>\n
“Recent diplomatic engagement here in Geneva, which will continue this Thursday, demonstrates that a new window of opportunity exists for negotiations to address differences and build confidence — provided that they uphold mutual respect, equitable treatment and non-selective application of international norms. <\/p>\n
“Any sustainable and credible negotiation must respect the legitimate rights of all states under international law, and deliver tangible security benefits without coercion, unilateral demands or threats of force.” <\/p>\n
– ‘Chaos and change’ – <\/p>\n
The United States and Israel threatened new military action against Iran after mass protests in the regime, which the Iranian authorities crushed at a cost of thousands of lives. <\/p>\n
After last week’s indirect talks with Washington through Omani mediators in Geneva, Tehran said they had reached broad agreement on a set of guiding principles. <\/p>\n
Gharibabadi said that while Tehran sought the path of diplomacy, it was prepared to defend its sovereignty, territory and people, insisting it would exercise its right to self-defense “if necessary”. <\/p>\n
He said meaningful progress in disarmament and non-proliferation could only be achieved through mutual, balanced and legally-binding commitments. <\/p>\n
He called upon nuclear weapons states to engage constructively in talks towards a comprehensive nuclear weapons convention, plus offer legally-binding security assurances for countries without nuclear weapons. <\/p>\n
Speaking just before, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world was living through a period of “chaos and change”, with international law being brazenly violated. <\/p>\n
“The international order that defined security relations for nearly eight decades is shifting rapidly. The reckless use of force in many regions is fomenting mistrust,” he warned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran’s deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi warned of a wider escalation if his country was attacked, after US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-306367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}