IRANIAN Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said yesterday that the threat of war against Iran and the region must be eliminated, and Tehran will never accept the cycle of war, ceasefire, negotiation, and war again.
In a televised interview, Qalibaf said: ‘We are not seeking war, but we will defend ourselves fiercely and respond firmly,’ amid a US-Israeli aggression against the country which started on February 28.
Qalibaf added that the US had expected victory within 72 hours, but instead has seen all its regional bases come under Iranian retaliatory operations, noting that ‘Trump now resorts to telling several lies a day out of desperation.’
He stated that Iran had long warned its neighbours that the US military presence would not bring them security – something now evident to them.
He predicted that countries in the region would establish an indigenous system of economic and security stability through bilateral and multilateral cooperation.
Regarding the earlier 12-day war last June, Qalibaf said Iran accepted that ceasefire only after persistent requests and its final strikes on Israel, but added: ‘They have now shown that they learned no lessons.’
Addressing recent developments in the Strait of Hormuz, the Speaker said its current closure was not Iran’s decision but a defensive necessity.
‘We never intended to target neighbouring states,’ he said, ‘but when missiles are launched toward us, it is our right to respond. Many ships no longer move because the conditions do not permit it.’
Legal and navigational arrangements in the Strait will no longer return to past conditions since ‘its previous security no longer exists.’
Qalibaf asserted that Israel had once vowed to reshape the order of West Asia through war. ‘Indeed, the region’s face and order are changing,’ he said, ‘but not under America’s dominance.’
Instead, he described a new regional security model based on indigenous cooperation among neighbouring nations.
He also warned that US and Israeli policies had destabilised not only West Asia but ‘the security of East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and even America itself.’
Highlighting the geopolitical importance of the Strait of Hormuz, Qalibaf called it ‘one of the world’s key points,’ vital for the transfer of oil and energy.
He underlined that there was a ‘strategic miscalculation’ in US involvement, saying Israel had set a trap for Washington, which ‘fell into it due to immaturity.’
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