Amir Abdollahian: Resistance groups make decisions based on their interests

According to Tasnim News Agency, Hossein Amirabdollahian in an interview with Financial Times He emphasized: There are groups in Syria and Iraq that have an identity, an identity in their own country and land, due to the wrong policies of the United States in the past years in the region and due to the formation of these groups in the fight against ISIS. They decide based on their interests.

The full text of this interview is as follows:

Question: Thank you for your time. I will start my first question about America. Is the Islamic Republic interested in entering into direct negotiations with America regarding Gaza?

Answer: I think The issue of Gaza is an issue that comes back to the Palestinian groups and they are the main side of this story. Therefore, to basically say that Iran and the US enter into a direct dialogue about the developments in Gaza, maybe it is not a very accurate question.

Question: But as a country that has influence in the region on the Palestinian groups and on the resistance axis groups in your interpretation, can the dialogue between Iran and the United States help reduce tensions?

Answer: Messages have been exchanged between us and the Americans through the Office of the Protection of American Interests in Tehran, which is the Swiss Embassy, ​​regarding the issue of Palestinian developments in the past 40 days. The Americans have conveyed some points through this diplomatic channel and we have answered them through this channel.

Question: Can you provide more detail about these messages, what concerns are conveyed?

Answer: Americans in Weeks And in the first days of the war, they tried to send the message that they do not seek to expand the scope of the war and asked Iran to exercise restraint. Also, in similar messages to Beirut, they asked Hezbollah to exercise restraint, but it (that is, America) completely sided with the Israeli regime; He did not hesitate to send all the military facilities and weapons that the Israeli regime needed and thus increased the intensity of the war. America itself did not remain committed to the non-development of the war and openly pursued the issue of increasing the intensity of the war, killing and genocide against the people of Gaza and the West Bank. Of course, in response to America, we said in a message that Iran does not seek to expand the war, but with the approach that America and the occupying regime of Israel have in the region, if the war crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility is conceivable and the expansion The scope of the war could be inevitable.

Question: Did the Americans threaten in the messages they sent to Iran If Hezbollah goes to war with Israel in a wider way, can they attack Iran?

Answer: We We did not receive such a message.

Question: Did the American messages have an effect on Hizbullah not entering into a wider war with Israel? Did it?

Answer: Of course, America’s message has the opposite effect on Hezbollah. Not only does America’s message not make Hezbollah cautious in its decision, but with the knowledge we have of Hezbollah, they become more determined about their own actions and decide head on. The reality on the scene is that Hezbollah has entered a stage of war with Israel today, and what actions Hezbollah will take and what other steps it will follow in the coming hours and days is something that comes back to Hezbollah’s decision. Not to America’s message to Hezbollah.

Question: Besides the Swiss channel that you mentioned, are there other channels like Has it been Oman and Qatar that America has conveyed its message to Iran?

Answer: It does not matter what has been a channel; The message is important. For us, the Swiss channel is an official diplomatic channel because it is the US protection office.

Question: And Is this the most important channel for you?

Answer: It is the most official channel for us.

Question: Does this crisis that has arisen destroy the possibilities and hopes that arose after the exchange of prisoners between Iran and The United States has destroyed more de-escalation measures, and Iran and the United States cannot enter another phase from this stage?

Question: The same with Iranian energy?

Answer: The resistance groups in the region continue their efforts and actions to deal with the occupation as a genuine and rooted movement; Naturally, one of our main priorities is to strive for stability and security in the region, and from this direction, war, violence, aggression and genocide in the region is an important issue that not only Iran and not only America, but all the countries of the region, but an important part from the active countries of the world.

Question: America says the places where the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in eastern Syria has targeted uses; Do you confirm that the places used by Iran’s military forces have been targeted by America?

Answer: There are groups in Syria and Iraq that have an identity, an identity in their own country and land, due to the wrong policies of the United States in the past years in the region and due to the formation of these groups in the fight against ISIS. They decide based on their own interests and based on the information that the American side publishes, in this period of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the joint genocide of the Israelis with the support of the Americans in Gaza, these groups spontaneously attack some American targets. have given. America claims that these are related to Iran. We do not have any representative group in the region; We do not have any representative groups in Syria and Iraq. These are the groups that make their own decisions and act on their own. Of course, America has claimed that these groups are related to Iran, and for this reason, they have attacked targets in Syria in two stages and claimed that these targets belong to the IRGC. Pasdaran of Iran or belongs to Iran. I know one of these targets when they attacked; It was a place that our military advisors used in the past to fight terrorism, alongside the forces of that country, but this place lacked any forces and facilities at the time of the American attack.

Question: Has anyone from Iranian forces been killed in these attacks?

Answer: According to the news that I have so far, none of the Iranian forces have been hit, and of course, if such an incident happens, Iran’s response will be difficult.

Question: Does the sending of American ships to the eastern Mediterranean waters constitute a great threat to Iran? Because the analysis is that this is a sign of giving a thumbs up to Iran and that America has this ability.

Answer:

Question: Does it mean that the militia groups that are in the region can attack these ships?

Answer: You should ask such questions to the military.

Question: So with this in mind, if Hezbollah wants to attack Israel more and America considers that Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy group, then our response or Israel should be to Iran, what is Iran’s response? Will it be?

Answer: Israel is America’s proxy group, but we don’t have any proxy group in the region. Hezbollah is a movement of resistance against the occupation regime of Israel, it has an independent identity, it is Lebanese, it does not take orders from Iran, but it has a good relationship with Iran.

Question: Neither the politicians nor the military accept what you say; Let’s assume that the other party does not accept what you say, and if Hezbollah wants to increase its attacks on Israel and Israel wants to give its answer to Iran, what will Iran’s reaction be?

Answer: Whenever Hizbullah decides to increase the intensity of its operations in the occupied territories, it decides and acts directly.

Question: When you meet with Hamas or Hezbollah, what is your message to these groups?

Answer: Of course, due to the relationship we have with these groups, we have political support for the role of these groups in helping the security of the region. we do. In our meetings, we receive their assessments according to the situation in the region, and of course we share with them the ideas that the Islamic Republic of Iran pursues for peace, stability and security in the region.

Question: But what is your advice to these groups? Is this advice not to enter this war? For example, do you advise Hezbollah not to enter this war? What do you say to the Hashd al-Shaabi and the Houthis?

Answer: We have no advice to any of the groups in the region. We do not attend; These are either like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad against Israeli and occupier aggressions, or groups like Hashd al-Shaabi or groups in Syria have acted against ISIS and ensured the security of their country. We have not issued any advice or orders to them and we never will; They make decisions based on their own interests, but if these groups were created in Syria and Iraq, it was because of the growth of ISIS in Iraq and to fight against ISIS and terrorism; But these groups are not indifferent to the killing of their fellow Muslims and Arabs in Palestine, to the genocide in Palestine, to the continuing crimes of the Israeli regime in Palestine. We take responsibility for our own actions with openness and transparency; In response to the assassination of General Soleimani, we fired 13 ballistic missiles at the American base in Ain al-Assad and officially accepted the responsibility.

Question: Now that the Palestinian issue is such an important issue in Iran’s foreign policy, why doesn’t Iran enter the war and help Hamas?

Answer: Because its resistance has a high ability; You will see that in the phase of entering the ground war, the fate of the war will be determined by the resistance inside Gaza. Despite the killing of more than 14,500 civilians, despite the many crimes committed in this genocide, the resistance has just entered the stage of action.

Question: Do the resistance groups you meet want you to go to war?

Answer: No; They say that they have so many facilities and have preserved their forces for the day that the Israeli regime enters into a ground war, which in their opinion is just the beginning of a real confrontation. The Israeli regime has only bombarded with American facilities and with its own weapons, but in recent days the battle scene has changed and now the opportunity for a confrontational war between the Palestinian resistance forces and the Israeli regime forces has been provided. This confrontation is what the resistance forces have been waiting for for weeks. Has it come into being? Do you consider this to be in the interest of Hamas?

Answer: The Palestinian resistance considers this stage in its interest and believes that ground war means grounding the Israeli regime, and we see that in the past days, more than 80 advanced Israeli tanks and Israeli bulldozers have been destroyed in the attacks of the resistance forces. According to the assessment provided by the resistance forces, this is a start; Therefore, the resistance forces and Palestinian resistance groups still have high capabilities, both in terms of human resources and equipment and facilities; They have not asked us to enter the war. They themselves have a high ability.

Question: What is the request for missiles and drones?

Answer: They have everything and produce it themselves.

Answer: I don’t know the details, but the Palestinian resistance to produce the weapons it needs, the necessary capabilities has Some people believe that the vast aid of the West to Ukraine provided a smuggling under the title of arms smuggling, that these arms smugglers who had to enter Ukraine, provided the conditions for buying and selling arms in other regions. Maybe the Palestinian resistance forces were able to get some of these weapons.

Question: Before going Will Ukraine arrive?

Answer: I don’t know the details, but it seems that the war in Ukraine is a vast market of buying and selling and It has provided arms trafficking in the world.

Answer: Where you say that the arrival of Israeli and Gaza ground forces has created a new opportunity for Hamas and a new turning point has been created, does that mean that we will see a long war of attrition in Gaza?

Answer: I think the Israeli regime will not be able to withstand an attrition war. Today, the Israeli regime is facing multi-layered crises from within. These multi-layered crises are not related to October 7, they are related to before October 7. But on the morning of Saturday, October 7, the liberation operation of Hamas showed that Israel’s security system has completely collapsed.

Question: So a war of attrition can benefit the resistance forces, but not Israel?

Answer: Naturally, when a group acts as a guerilla, a long war usually favors the group that acts as a guerilla, but not for a classic army.

Question: Can we conclude that the strategy of the resistance groups is a war of attrition in Gaza?

Answer: I think that given the situation that exists: firstly, in the Arab world, a common sense of concern and threat from Israel for All are there; For this reason, you can see that the countries that have normalized their relations with the Israeli regime, both their governments are extremely worried about the situation that has occurred and their nations are strongly anti-Israel, and these crimes that Israel committed in the last 40 days have no excuse for Israel has not left; The Israeli who used to shed crocodile tears for others is known today as an executioner; Of course, the Jews in Israel and the residents of the occupied territories are becoming victims of Netanyahu’s policies. Netanyahu’s war with Gaza has also taken on a personal dimension. According to some Jewish thinkers, Netanyahu is neither a man of peace nor a man of war, but he is collapsing the foundations of the occupation regime of Israel, and don’t doubt that according to the ideas that exist inside the occupied territories, if the war stops today, Netanyahu will fall tomorrow. Is; Therefore, Netanyahu has a personal motivation to continue this war and killing, they have done everything they could in the last 40 days: bombing, using phosphorus bombs, using prohibited weapons, massacring women and children, attacking hospitals, killing at least 50 journalists who were your collaborators and killed more than 4400 children; Now the page of Israeli crimes is filling up, so time is not in favor of Israel.

Question: About the ceasefire Is it possible to have a stop in the war so that the Israeli prisoners can be exchanged? A political initiative is on the table. In the second week of the war, when I was traveling in the region, the idea was raised that measures should be taken to release the civilian prisoners of the Israeli regime; We had consultations with the Qatari authorities. Even I addressed this issue in my meeting with Mr. Seyed Hassan Nasrallah, and finally our consultations turned into a meeting with Mr. Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas; In that meeting, the idea of ​​releasing the civilian prisoners in Gaza was raised and the political leader of Hamas declared his agreement with this issue; This was the beginning of an initiative that friends in Qatar tried to make this initiative come to fruition and later developed to exchange with some of the Palestinian women and children captured in regime prisons and lead to the reopening of the Rafah border to send humanitarian aid. . But I said today in a conversation with the officials of the Red Cross and the United Nations in Geneva that really the conclusion of Hamas is that Israel is not looking to release and exchange prisoners, because if it had done this three weeks ago, some of these prisoners would have been in Israel’s own bombings did not kill. Israel is playing with time, and as a result, despite Hamas’s preparation, they make dramatic moves; At the same time as I was in Geneva, I was informed that the foreign minister of the Israeli regime was also here with some of the families of these prisoners and was trying. There was no need to come to Geneva at all. Since three weeks ago, everything is ready for the exchange of civilian prisoners. But it is the Israeli side that does not accept.

Question: Do you want a complete cessation of war or a temporary cessation that some Countries have offered, is it acceptable?

Answer: We did not discuss how to stop with Hamas. Of course, Hamas seeks to take this excuse from the occupying regime and show that it has the necessary flexibility for a humanitarian movement and the release of civilian prisoners, but it is the Israeli side that is playing with time and shows serious will. This relationship has not been shown.

Question: Do you know where the prisoners are kept?

Answer: No

Question: In the first weeks, the fear of the spread of war in the region was clearly felt. Have we passed this stage now?

Answer: Based on my personal assessment, expanding the scope of war in The area has started. The fact that the Yemeni army makes an official statement and targets the occupied territories with missiles and drones is a sign of the beginning of the war, or the fact that Hezbollah is currently involved with a third of the Israeli army. It is the beginning of the expansion stage of the war. However, the region has not yet entered the intensification of the scope of the war. Any possibility is envisaged in case of failure to reach a political plan and stop the war. What is observed now is more the beginning of the expansion of the scope of the war and a kind of warning, and with the continuation of the war, the possibility of its development has increased.

Question: Is Iran now out of the political isolation it faced last year? In other words, has the Gaza war benefited Iran in this regard?

Answer: Last year, Iran was isolated It was not political. At that time, the United States and some western countries tried to throw Iran into chaos by claiming the death of an Iranian girl. Also, more than one and a half million Palestinians displaced by the Gaza war have remained silent. They did not take any action in the Security Council and the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. The question is, isn’t the massacre of 14,500 women and children a shocking issue? Who would believe that the tragic death of an Iranian girl would be met with so much reaction, but the massacre of Palestinian women and children would be met with silence from the same countries? Aren’t Palestinian women and children human?

A high-ranking European official told me on the sidelines of a meeting in the first week of the war that my grandson He asks why our politics in Ukraine and Palestine are completely opposite, and I did not have an answer for this double standard that would convince my grandson. We were not isolated last year. Rather, we witnessed the peak of foreign interference and they used the death of an Iranian girl as an excuse to pursue their political goals; But a few weeks later, that wave completely subsided.

Question: Last year in Iran, a very negative attitude about Saudi Arabia existed, but this year Mr. Raisi had a meeting with Mr. Mohammed bin Salman and Mr. Al-Sisi. Has the war in Gaza narrowed the gap between Iran and the Arab countries?

Answer: We believe that We are not that if we interacted with several European countries, then it is a sign of non-isolation, and if we did not, it is a sign of isolation. Now the world is much wider and more diverse than the scope in your and my mind. We were not isolated last year, nor have we found a much newer situation this year, and of course there have been openings in cooperation with the region and neighbors, including the return of Iran-Saudi relations to a normal state in our foreign policy.

Question: What is your prediction for the continuation of the war?

Answer: Predicting war is not an easy task for me as a diplomat; But I can say that Israeli prisoners will not be freed by war with Hamas. Based on the knowledge and the meetings we had with the leaders of the region and the resistance movement, the fate of this war will be decided by the resistance and not by Israel. I can already predict that as on October 7, Israel’s security system collapsed; Netanyahu continued to fall and is now alive with American artificial respiration, but he will soon be removed from the Israeli political arena. I can say with certainty that based on the information provided by the resistance; The winner of this war is not Israel, but the resistance and Palestine. Prisoners can be released only through diplomacy.

Question:This is through a complete cessation of war or a cessation of hostilities. Can a temporary war take place?

Answer: This issue depends on the opinion of the main parties, especially Hamas. Diplomacy can free the prisoners, but there is no will on the part of the Israeli regime for this.

Question: Will Iran play a role in this diplomacy for the release of prisoners? We have discussed with Hamas and they have expressed their agreement to both us and Qatar.

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