Israel issues ultimatum over Iranians in Syria
JERUSALEM • Israel has warned the Syrian regime to “get rid of the Iranians” or else risk further large-scale Israeli air strikes against Iran’s forces in Syrian territory.
A day after Israel launched “Operation House of Cards” — striking 70 targets across Syria in response to what it said was an Iranian rocket attack on the Golan Heights — Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli defence minister, issued a message to Damascus.
“They are not helping you, they only cause damage, and their presence will only cause problems and damages,” he said during a tour of the Golan Heights.
“Get rid of the Iranians and maybe it will be possible to have a different kind of life.”
Iran meanwhile denied that its forces were behind the rocket attack on Thursday morning and said Israel had launched the air strikes into Syria based on “fabricated and baseless excuses.”
The spike in violence came as Tehran prepared to mount a complicated diplomatic offensive to try to salvage the Iran nuclear deal in the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw.
Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, is to leave today on a trip to Beijing, Moscow and Brussels to meet with the remaining countries in the nuclear agreement and urge them not to give in to U.S. pressure to halt trade with Iran.
“The foreign minister has been tasked with the duty of taking the necessary measures to obtain guarantees from the remaining parties of the JCPOA as well as Iran’s other economic partners,” Iran’s government said.
The Israeli statement warned that even as Zarif was on his diplomatic mission, Iran was making preparations so that it could resume “industrial scale” uranium enrichment.
Such a move would be a breach of the nuclear agreement and set Iran back on a potential course toward major conflict with Israel and the U.S., both of which have said they will not allow Iran to develop the capacity for a nuclear weapon.
Iran is seeking assurances that European, Russian and Chinese companies will continue to do business with Iran, even in the face of threats from the U.S. that companies that do so may face American sanctions.
An early test is likely to come this week when Airbus, the European aircraft maker, is expected to announce whether it will continue with a deal to supply Iran with 100 commercial planes.
The deal is of major importance to Iran and its national carrier, IranAir, which has been struggling for years with a fleet of aging planes.
Meanwhile, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia was not planning to supply the Syrian regime with sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Vladimir Kozhin said the Syrian regime forces had “everything they needed.”
The announcement appeared to be a victory for Israel as the S-300 system in the hands of the Syrian regime would threaten Israel’s freedom to carry out airstrikes. It also seemed to be another sign of tensions between Iran and Russia, who are fighting on the same side on behalf of the Syrian regime.
Asharq Al-Awsat, a London-based Arab newspaper, published an unconfirmed account of tensions within Iran’s government over the attack in the Golan. It claimed that Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, accused the Revolutionary Guard of launching the rocket attack as a way of sabotaging his efforts to save the nuclear agreement.
Meanwhile, Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said Iran had obtained a letter sent by Donald Trump to Arab allies demanding that they do more for the U.S. in return for America’s military presence in the Middle East. “The U.S. wants to own humiliated slaves,” the ayatollah said.
Trump has complained about U.S. allies taking advantage of American security guarantees. “They have to step up tremendously — not a little bit, but tremendously — their financial effort,” Trump said of the Gulf states.