Iran on Friday said Israel’s possible involvement in a US-led military coalition in the Persian Gulf was a threat to its national security, and that Tehran would counter Israeli presence in the region.
“The announcement made about the possible presence of the al-Quds occupying regime [Israel] in the self-proclaimed military coalition in the Persian Gulf region is a blatant threat to Iran’s national security,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Abbas Mousavi, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
Mousavi said that Iran claimed the right to self defense to oppose Israeli and American moves in the region.
He was apparently responding to comments reportedly made by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who on Tuesday in a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee said Israel was involved in US-led efforts to provide maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Ynet news site.
Katz said Israel was assisting the mission to secure the strategic waterway with intelligence and in other unspecified fields. He stressed the mission was in Israel’s strategic interest of countering Iran and boosting ties with Gulf countries.
Responding to Katz’s comments, Iran’s defense minister on Thursday said that the formation of a US-led flotilla would “increase insecurity” and any Israeli involvement would have “disastrous consequences” for the region.
“The military coalition that America is seeking to form with the excuse of securing maritime transport will only increase insecurity in the region,” Defense Minister Amir Hatami said in a conference call with counterparts from Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
Reacting to reports of Israeli willingness to join the coalition, he said it would be “highly provocative and can have disastrous consequences for the region.”
Tehran and Washington have been locked in a battle of nerves since US President Donald Trump withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran last year and reimposed sanctions.
Tensions have soared in the region, with drones downed and tankers mysteriously attacked in Gulf waters.
Also Thursday, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard warned that a new war in the region would include Iran’s regional proxy groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, and would result in the “collapse” of Israel.
In comments carried by the semi-official Tasnim news agency, Gen. Hossein Salami said an “[axis of] power has been shaped in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere, and the enemy is mindful that any new war may pose a full-blown threat against the Zionist regime and put it in the path to an irreversible collapse.”
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