US tells Israel it won’t join any Iran retaliation
No pre-strike warning from Iran, says US
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Turkish, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said on Sunday that Iran gave wide notice days before its drone and missile attack on Israel, but US officials said Tehran did not warn Washington and that it was aiming to cause significant damage.
Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles on Saturday in a retaliatory strike after a suspected Israeli strike on its embassy compound in Syria.
Most of the drones and missiles were downed before reaching Israeli territory, though a young girl was critically injured and there were widespread concerns of further escalation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday that Iran gave neighboring countries and Israel’s ally the United States 72 hours’ notice it would launch the strikes.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said it had spoken to both Washington and Tehran before the attack, adding it had conveyed messages as an intermediary to be sure reactions were proportionate.
“Iran said the reaction would be a response to Israel’s attack on its embassy in Damascus and that it would not go beyond this. We were aware of the possibilities. The developments were not a surprise,” said a Turkish diplomatic source.
One senior official in US President Joe Biden’s administration denied Amirabdollahian’s statement, saying Washington did have contact with Iran through Swiss intermediaries, but did not get notice 72 hours in advance.
“That is absolutely not true,” the official said. “They did not give a notification, nor did they give any sense of ... ‘these will be the targets, so evacuate them.’ ”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would not participate in any Israeli counter-offensive against Iran, US officials said on Sunday.
Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night in response to a suspected Israeli attack on Iran’s Syria consulate on April 1.
In a statement issued late on Saturday following the attacks, Biden said he told Netanyahu that Israel had “demonstrated a remarkable capacity to defend against and defeat even unprecedented attacks.”
Biden did not say in the statement if he and Netanyahu discussed a possible Israeli response or potential US involvement.
“We believe Israel has freedom of action to protect itself and defend itself, in Syria or elsewhere. That’s a longstanding policy and that remains, but no we would not envision ourselves participating in such a thing,” one senior US administration official said.
John Kirby, the White House’s top national security spokesperson, told ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday that the US will continue to help Israel defend itself, but does not want war with Iran.
Asked if the US would support retaliation from Israel in Iran, Kirby said that “our commitment is ironclad” to defending Israel and to “helping Israel defend itself.”
“And as the president has said many times, we don’t seek a wider war in the region. We don’t seek a war with Iran. And I think I will leave it at that,” Kirby added.
“We don’t seek escalated tensions in the region. We don’t seek a wider conflict,” Kirby said.