Iran to decide on how, when to punish Israel

In an interview with Al Jazeera, the Iranian president stressed that the Israeli regime wants to expand the war in the West Asia region to prevent its destruction and continue to survive.

“Israel could not achieve its goals in Gaza and could not destroy Hamas,” he said, adding, that the only thing Israel achieved was to destroy an entire city and prevent the entry of humanitarian aid.

He added that the Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu seeks political survival through the current crisis, and Israel would not harmed by the expansion of the scope of the war because it is supported by those who have false humanitarian values.

“What Israel is doing in the region is genocide,” he said, criticizing the support of the US and some European states for the Israeli regime’s crimes.

Referring to the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, Pezeshkian stressed that the Islamic Republic would decide on the time, the manner, and the extent of its response to the Israeli crime.

Ismail Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were martyred after their residence was targeted in Tehran on July 31, according to a statement released by the IRGC.

Issuing a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh was “designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America.”

Reacting to the Israeli act of terror, high-ranking Iranian officials vowed to give a proper response to the Zionist regime, with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei saying, that by assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, the Israeli regime has prepared the ground for harsh punishment for itself.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Pezeshkian said that Iran’s military power and its missiles and weapons are for self-defense.

Referring to the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), Pezeshkian said that Iran has no problem holding talks with the US, but Washington has not fulfilled what it promised. “At the moment, we do not see the goodwill of the American side in terms of dialogue, and this is what happened in the nuclear deal.”

The JCPOA was signed in 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. Former US President Donald Trump illegally pulled out of the deal in 2018 while the current US President, Joe Biden, has signaled that he is ready to resurrect the agreement.

Russia, the UK, Germany, China, the US, and France have been in talks with Iran since April 2021 to reinstate the deal.

The talks to salvage the JCPOA kicked off in the Austrian capital of Vienna in April 2021, with the intention of examining Washington’s seriousness in rejoining the deal and removing anti-Iran sanctions.

The negotiations have been at a standstill since August due to Washington’s insistence on its hard-nosed position of not removing all the sanctions that were slapped on the Islamic Republic by the previous US administration. Iran maintains it is necessary for the other side to offer some guarantees that it will remain committed to any agreement that is reached.