Iran warned Monday that its armed forces will strike Israel's capital Tel Aviv if the country is seen to carry out even "the slightest action" against it, further ramping up tensions amid negotiations with the US on a nuclear deal that could return Iranian crude to global markets.
"The message to the Zionist regime [Israel] is that if you seek to normalise relations with the countries of the region, know that even your slightest action will not be hidden from our intelligence and armed forces," Raisi said. "If you take even the slightest move against our nation, our armed forces will descend on the heart of the Zionist regime."
The threat, made during a speech at a military parade to mark the country's ‘Army Day', comes amid what Iran sees as a growing, and unwelcome, role for Israel in regional politics.
Israel and the UAE signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020, since when Israel has also normalised relations with Bahrain and Morocco, and overseen an improvement in relations with Egypt, among others.
Tehran has repeatedly condemned such moves towards Israel, saying that they threatened its security.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on 13 March carried out a missile attack on multiple locations in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's northern Kurdish region, which it said was part of a wider operation to hit Israeli targets.
Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan region, said after that attack that Iran had carried out the strikes to maintain its influence in Baghdad as the country strives to form a new government. "We understand that this is pressure on us as we are moving forward to form the new government in Iraq, the formation has not been the way, you know, they [Iranians] wanted," Barzani said last month.
Stalling in Vienna
Raisi's warning also comes as negotiations with the US in Vienna over a restoration of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and in turn a lifting of US economic sanctions on Iran, remain stalled.
Discussions between Iran and the US began in April 2021 but were put ‘on pause' in early March, soon after the US and EU began imposing sanctions on Russia, one of the original partners of the JCPOA, for its actions in Ukraine.
Before the halt, all parties to the original deal were saying that an agreement to restore it was close. But the mood around the talks has changed dramatically, with Tehran and Washington now saying success is anything but guaranteed.
"We honestly do not know whether we will reach an agreement or not," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said last week. He reiterated on Monday that "until everything has been agreed, nothing has been agreed."
Israel's prime minister Naftali Bennett has previously said that, even if an agreement is reached to restore the nuclear deal, Tel Aviv will not be bound by it and would be prepared to take unilateral action against Tehran if threatened.
Raisi used today's event as another opportunity to warn Israel against doing such a thing.
"Our proud army used the opportunity of sanctions in the best way to be self sufficient and empowered," Raisi said. "And today, our country's military industry, including the army, is in the best shape."
