A “secret channel” connects the USA and Iran to avoid the escalation of the conflict
Iran's foreign minister has revealed the contents of secret talks with Washington, marking rare positive news from a Middle East that remains on a knife edge in the Gaza conflict. The very fact of these silent discussions on red lines suggests that both sides are legitimately interested in moderation in relation to broader tensions outside Gaza. The problem is the succession of attacks and retaliations that alternate between Syria and Iraq.
Top Iranian diplomat Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a new interview with the FT that Tehran does not want an escalation with Israel and the United States, and does not want to see the war centered on Israel and Hamas escalate further. He said this despite the now daily firefights involving Hezbollah along the Lebanese border. In this context, it is rumored that Washington is very reluctant to censor Iran for any development of its nuclear program, precisely so as not to add more fuel to the fire.
However, Amirabdollahian threatened that if there is no end to Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, in which more than 11,300 Palestinians have died, according to their authorities, Iran will have to step up its action, although he did not define what that means.
“For the past 40 days, messages have been exchanged between Iran and the United States through the American interests section of the Swiss embassy in Tehran,” Minister Amirabdollahian said. Let us remember that, since the attack on the US embassy in 1979, there have been no US diplomatic representations in Tehran and the conversation takes place through the Swiss embassy, which represents American interests.
“In response to the United States, we said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but that, because of the approach taken by the United States and Israel in the region, if crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank they will not be stopped, every possibility could be considered and a wider conflict could prove inevitable,” he stressed.
Currently, there is consensus that the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah has indeed slowed down significantly. Many Palestinian supporters hoped that Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah would declare war in two speeches during the conflict. But Hezbollah's full declaration of war has not arrived.
Interestingly, Amirabdollahian described that while Washington calls on Tehran to “exercise restraint,” the United States itself does not, especially given that it has sent two aircraft carrier strike groups and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region, along to an accumulation of troops.
In his words on FT:
He said U.S. messages to Hezbollah similarly urging restraint “would fail to make the resistance group cautious in its decision-making.”
“Our military officials are of the opinion that the deployment of US aircraft carriers near our region, making them accessible, is not a strong point for the United States. Rather, it makes them more vulnerable to possible attacks,” Amirabdollahian said.
“The war has already spread to the region,” he added. And then he focused on the Yemeni Houthis, who have now launched missiles and drones towards Israel several times.
“The fact that the Yemeni army [the Iranian-backed Houthi movement] . . . attacks on the occupied lands with missiles and drones means that the war has begun to expand. The fact that Hezbollah is fighting with a third of the Israeli army shows that the war has expanded,”
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The article A “secret channel” connects the USA and Iran to avoid the escalation of the conflict comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/un-canale-segreto-collega-usa-e-iran-per-evitare-lescalation-del-conflitto/ on Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:19:27 +0000.