M’East Crisis: Iranian Envoy Vows Action If Trump Follows Through On Threats

Iran’s UN Representative, AmirSaeid Iravani, has warned that Tehran will not “stand idle’ if Trump follows through on ‘war crime’ threats.

He said that Trump’s threats earlier yesterday that a “whole civilization will die” if Iran does not make a deal “constitute incitement to war crimes and potentially genocide.”

During a Security Council session on the Strait of Hormuz, Iravani urged the international community to call out Trump’s rhetoric before it’s too late.

“Iran will not stand idle in the face of such egregious war crimes. It will exercise, without hesitation, its inherent right of self-defence and will take immediate and proportionate reciprocal measures,” he said.

Also speaking yesterday Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said that 14 million Iranians, including himself, have volunteered to sacrifice their lives in the war.

The figure is double the other figures mentioned by state media in the past. Iran is home to 90 million people. On his part US Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “deeply troubled” by the statement suggesting that an entire people or civilization may bear “the consequences of political and military decisions,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Guterres didn’t name Trump but was clearly referring to the American leader’s warning to Iran earlier yesterday that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if the Strait of Hormuz isn’t opened, reports The Associated Press. “There is no military objective that justifies the wholesale destruction of a society’s infrastructure or the deliberate infliction of suffering on civilian populations,” Guterres’ spokesman said.

The Secretary-General reiterates that leaders can still choose “dialogue over destruction” and the choice for talks must be made now, Dujarric said. Guterres calls for stepped-up diplomacy to find a path to peace and appeals for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the spokesman said.

Also reacting, the House Democratic leaders in a joint statement yesterday called President Donald Trump “completely unhinged” and asked the House to be brought back immediately into legislative session.

“His statement threatening to eradicate an entire civilization shocks the conscience and requires a decisive congressional response,” said the joint statement from Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and four other top House Democrats.

“The House must come back into session immediately and vote to end this reckless war of choice in the Middle East before Donald Trump plunges our country into World War III,” the Democratic lawmakers said. They called on House Republicans to put patriotic duty over party loyalty and “join Democrats in stopping this madness.”

And ahead of Trump’s deadline, the US also struck military targets on the Iranian oil hub of Kharg Island, according to a White House official who was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The attack marked the second time the island was targeted. Israeli warplanes, meanwhile, struck bridges and railways in Iran.

Meanwhile, Israel’s military said Iran had launched missiles at the country yesterday evening, the seventh time of the day. Sirens sent people to shelters in the southern part of the country, while earlier salvos had been centred on the major metropolis of Tel Aviv, as well as central Israel and parts of the occupied West Bank.

Northern Israeli communities continued to come under fire from Hezbollah as well. Sundown yesterday marked the beginning of the last day of the Passover holiday, an especially important religious occasion in the Jewish calendar. Earlier in the day, an elderly couple and their son, who were killed in a missile attack, were buried in Haifa.

And in another development, US journalist, Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped in Baghdad last week by an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, was released yesterday. Ahead of her release, the group said its decision came “in appreciation of the patriotic stances” of Iraq’s prime minister, without giving details.