Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- If Israel does something stupid, it will face a shocking response the likes of which it has never encountered before, an Iranian diplomat in Syria said.
The press attaché for the Iranian Embassy in Damascus Majid Bashtestani warned Israel against striking his country’s nuclear facilities.
“If Israel were to do something stupid, it will face a shocking response the likes of which it has never encountered before,” Bashtestani warned.
Asked to comment on recent speculation of a possible Israeli or American attack on Iran, the attaché said, “This threat is not new; it has recurred over the years, ever since the Islamic revolution took place in Iran and to this day.”
As for whether Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf if attacked, and by doing so risk harming its neighboring Arab nations, he said Iran “has no conflict with its Arab neighbors, the opposite is true. We have good ties with them, and they understand our right to respond to any act of aggression against us in order to protect ourselves.”
Bashtestani mentioned the recent visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad to Tehran as an example of this.
“President Assad’s visit to Iran is a positive one, it serves the bilateral interests of both nations as well as the interests of regional stability and security,” he said, reiterating Assad’s instance that he was not in Tehran to communicate any message from Western nations.
Regarding Iran’s policy on the recently renewed peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, the diplomat stated, “Syria has every right to regain its plundered land, the occupied Golan Heights, and therefore it has the right to negotiate and try to regain what belongs to it.”
He further noted Iran’s nuclear issue, and stressed, “Iran will never give up its rights, which are set in international law, granting it the right to possess nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
Israel and its close ally the United States accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.
Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.
Iran has also insisted that it would continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.
Tel Aviv and Washington have recently intensified their threats to launch military action against Iran to make Tehran drop what they allege to be a non-peaceful nuclear program, while a recent report by 16 US intelligence bodies endorsed the civilian nature of Iran’s nuclear plans and activities.
Following the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and similar reports by the IAEA head – one in November and the other one in February – which praised Iran’s truthfulness about key aspects of its past nuclear activities and announced settlement of outstanding issues with Tehran, any effort to impose further sanctions or launch military attack on Iran seems to be completely irrational.
The February report by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, praised Iran’s cooperation in clearing up all of the past questions over its nuclear program, vindicating Iran’s nuclear program and leaving no justification for any new UN sanctions.
The UN nuclear watchdog has so far carried out at least 14 surprise inspections of Iran’s nuclear sites, but found nothing to support the allegations.
Following the said reports by the US and international bodies, many world states have called the UN Security Council pressure against Tehran unjustified, demanding that Iran’s case must be normalized and returned from the UNSC to the IAEA.
