Moscow, June 19 (RHC)-- Russia has urged the United States to drop its “provocative” plans to deploy more troops to the Middle East, warning Washington against its “conscious” course of attempts to “provoke war” with Iran.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow had repeatedly warned Washington and its regional allies about the “unthinking and reckless pumping up of tensions in an explosive region.”
“Now what we see are unending and sustained U.S. attempts to crank up political, psychological, economic and yes military pressure on Iran in quite a provocative way. They (such actions) cannot be assessed as anything but a conscious course to provoke war,” he added.
“If that’s the case, the U.S. should refrain from further reinforcement of its presence and from other steps, including dragging and pushing its allies in various parts of the world into stepping up pressure on Iran,” Ryabkov said.
Tehran has time and again said that it does not seek military confrontations with the United States, yet it stands ready to defend its interests in the region. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani reaffirms that Iran is not seeking war with any nation amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic.
Iran's president emphasized that while his nation does not want war, Iran will be the ultimate winner of any warfare against the Islamic Republic. He said that Tehran will firmly respond to any ‘foolish’ act.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday called for restraint to avoid the escalation of tensions in the Middle East. “We are urging all the sides to show restraint,” Peskov told journalists. “We would prefer not to see any steps that could introduce additional tensions in the already unstable region.”
The United States remarkably stoked tensions with Iran in May 2018 when the U.S. president pulled his country out of a 2015 multinational nuclear deal with Tehran, and re-imposed harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticisms.
The tensions saw a sharp rise on the first anniversary of Washington’s exit from the deal as the US moved to ratchet up the pressure on Iran by tightening its oil sanctions and deploying reinforcements to the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier strike group, B-52 bombers and Patriot missiles.
Washington's recent military moves have sparked global concerns that the Trump administration is seriously contemplating military aggression against Iran.
