Iran will defend its people decisively if it is pushed to war, reiterated Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday, January 29, after American President Donald Trump’s repeated ultimatums and threats of military strikes in the country.

“If the American side is truly seeking negotiations and genuine diplomacy it must abandon provocative and escalatory measures and demonstrate in practice its commitment to the path of dialogue,” Pezeshkian told his Pakistani counterparts, Shehbaz Sherif and Qatari Sheikh Hamad Bin Thani, during separate phone conversations.

After softening his initial threats of military strikes over the Iranian crackdown of nationwide protests earlier, Trump renewed his threats against Iran this week despite widespread opposition to any such move expressed by the leaders from the Middle East region over the fears of wider regional consequences.

In a social media post on Wednesday, Trump asked Iran to submit to his demand and make a deal on “no nuclear weapons”, immediately claiming “time is running out”. He threatened that if Iran fails to comply with the demands the strikes this time would be “far worse” than the strikes in June.

Iran responded to the threats made by Trump warning that its responses to aggression inside the country would not be limited and all American assets in the region, including the warships and Israel, would be targeted.

No talks under threats of war

During a press conference on Thursday, Trump repeated his threats while also expressing his willingness to talk.

“We have a lot of very big, very powerful ships sailing to the region right now. Hopefully, we don’t have to use it,” Reuters reported Trump telling the press on Thursday.

Iran has maintained, for years now, that it has no intention to have nuclear weapons and its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian purposes only. It has also expressed its openness for dialogue on the issue, however, refusing to talk under threats of war.

Pezeshkian reiterated on Thursday that his country believes in “dignified diplomacy based on international laws, mutual respect, avoidance of threats and coercion and pursuit of win-win outcomes.”

Changes of a successful diplomacy between Iran and the US have also gone down since the inclusion of fresh demands. Apart from asking Iran to denounce any nuclear ambitions the Trump administration also wants it to agree to restrictions on its ballistic missiles programs and end all support to its regional allies identified as “proxies”.

Regional diplomacy

After Pezeshkian’s conversations with his Pakistani counterpart and Qatari Sheikh, similar phone conversations were held by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi with his counterparts in several other countries in the region and neighborhood, including Turkey and Egypt on Thursday and Friday.

The US has military bases in most of these countries. Iran has declared that in case it is attacked these bases would become legitimate targets of Iranian retaliation.

Several of these countries including Saudi Arabia and UAE have already declared they will not allow their territories to be used in any military strike against Iran.

Meanwhile, Araghchi traveled to Turkey to discuss the issue with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday.

Most of the countries in the region, including Turkey have opposed possible US military aggression against Iran claiming that would have larger regional consequences. They have called for political resolution of differences instead.

EU sanctions

Meanwhile, close US ally European Union (EU) imposed fresh sanctions on several Iranian officials and designated its Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Corp as a “terrorist organization” on Thursday.

The EU accused the individuals and IRGC of “serious human rights violations” and “killing thousands of protesters” during the recent nationwide protests.

Iran has called the EU’s move “spiteful, hasty and desperate” and “legally inconsistent with international law.”

Over 3,100 Iranians, including civilians and security forces, were killed during weeks-long protests which began over rising economic hardships in the country. Iran claims the protests were hijacked by foreign elements backed by Israel and the US seeking regime change in the country.

Reacting to the EU’s sanctions on Thursday, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament questioned their understanding of terrorism, claiming the IRGC is “one of the strongest and most effective anti-terrorism forces in the world.”

He also claimed that “only those who stand with terrorism deny the IRGC’s record in combating Daesh” or ISIS as it is commonly known and warned that support of terrorism will bring nothing but regret to the European countries, IRNA reported.

The EU has already imposed several sanctions on Iranian entities over Iran’s alleged violations of, now expired nuclear deal, its alleged supply of weapons to Russia and its human rights violations.

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