Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has apologised to neighbouring countries affected by retaliatory airstrikes in the week-old conflict against Israel and the United States.
Iran has conducted missile and drone strikes on multiple US military bases in Gulf countries — including Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait — as retaliation for the “preemptive” strikes launched by the US and Israel.
Mahdavi Raja, Iran’s ambassador to Nigeria, told TheCable on Thursday that Tehran considered it within its rights to strike the neighbouring Gulf countries, even if those states maintain friendly relations with his country.
Defending the decision, Raja said many of the strikes by the US were launched from military bases in the surrounding Arab countries.
Iran has since maintained that it would not back down from defending itself against attacks.
But the president took a softer tone on Saturday while speaking in a video message aired by Iranian state television.
“I deem it necessary to apologise to neighbouring countries that were attacked,” Pezeshkian said. “We do not intend to invade neighbouring countries.”
The president called for regional cooperation to “establish peace and calm”.
Pezeshkian added that a leadership decision has been issued to the armed forces to “not attack neighbouring countries unless attacked first”.
“Those considering exploiting this moment to attack Iran must not become puppets of imperialism,” he said.
The president added that supporting Israel or the US is “not a path to honour and freedom”.
Shortly after his address, Qatar’s ministry of defence said its armed forces had “intercepted” a missile attack.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says it has started a “broad wave” of fresh strikes targeting Iranian infrastructure in Tehran and Isfahan.
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