MOSCOW (Reuters) – The United States, the United Kingdom and Russia launched calls on Thursday for de-escalation to Middle Eastern states, where tensions are at their highest since an Israeli strike against the consulate of Iran to Damascus.
Tehran has promised to avenge this raid which cost the lives of seven members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps on April 1. Israel, which did not claim responsibility for this raid, but which the Pentagon attributed to it, has strengthened its defenses and says it is ready to prepare for any scenario.
“We are ready to meet the security needs of the State of Israel, both defensively and offensively,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a visit to an air base in southern Israel.
The United States and its allies expect at any time a missile or drone strike from Iran or its proxies against military or government targets in Israel, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing security sources. American and Israeli.
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American President Joe Biden, not shy of criticism against the management of the Gaza war by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, assured Israel on Wednesday of the “unwavering” support of the United States.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken with his Turkish, Chinese and Saudi counterparts over the past 24 hours to call for de-escalation, US officials said.
Iran has refrained from any direct action against Israel since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip in October, unlike its allies in the region – Lebanese Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Shiite militias in Iraq – who are waging a campaign harassment against Israel or its Western partners as far away as the Red Sea.
During his daily press briefing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow, a close ally of Iran and Syria, had not been asked to mediate between Israel and Tehran.
“We call on all countries in the region to show restraint” so as not to completely destabilize the situation, he said.
In a note, the Russian Foreign Ministry once again advised Russian nationals against traveling to the region, in particular to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, as it had done since October 7, after the Hamas attack in southern Israel.
British Foreign Minister David Cameron expressed his concern about further violence to his Iranian counterpart.
“Today I was clear with (Iranian) Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian that Iran must not drag the Middle East into a wider conflict,” David Cameron wrote on the X platform.
“I am particularly concerned about potential miscalculations that could lead to further violence. Iran should instead work to de-escalate and prevent further attacks,” he added.
The German airline Lufthansa, the only Western company with its subsidiary Austrian Airlines to serve Tehran, has suspended its flights to the Iranian capital until April 13.
(Jean-Stéphane Brosse and Zhifan Liu for the French version)
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