Top Russian security official arrives Tehran ahead of expected strike on Israel
Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu arrived in the Iranian capital Tehran on Monday for talks with top Iranian leaders, including President Masoud Peskov, the Interfax news agency reported.
Shoigu, who was defense minister before being moved to the Security Council in May, will also meet Iran’s national security chief and the chief of the general staff, Interfax said.
Russian security official arrives in Tehran
Moscow has been working to strengthen ties with Tehran since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and says it is preparing to sign a wide-ranging cooperation agreement with Iran.
Reuters reported in February that Iran had supplied Russia with a large number of surface-to-surface ballistic missiles.
The United States confirmed in June that Russia appeared to be deepening its defense cooperation with Iran and had received hundreds of attack drones it has used to bomb Ukraine, though Moscow denies this.
Russia announced on Friday that it joined Iran in condemning the assassination of Haniyeh and pointing to the "grave consequences of this act."
An expected strike against Israel
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that Tehran does not seek to escalate tensions in the region, but believes that punishing Israel is necessary to prevent further instability, following the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement in Tehran last week.
"Iran seeks to establish stability in the region, but this will not be achieved unless the aggressor is punished and Israel is deterred from undertaking adventures," Kanaani said, adding that Tehran's move is inevitable.
Kanaani called on the United States to stop supporting Israel, saying that the international community has not fulfilled its duty to protect the stability of the region and must support "punishing the aggressor."
Israel will be punished
For his part, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, confirmed on Monday the Revolutionary Guards' threat that Israel "will be punished at the appropriate time." Salami said Israel would receive a "decisive response" to the assassination of Haniyeh early Wednesday during his visit to the capital, Tehran.
Salami said in a speech during a ceremony honoring journalists at Revolution University that Israel "assassinated a struggling man who was demanding the rights of a people." He added that Israel "miscalculated by assassinating Haniyeh, and will receive a decisive response."
He continued: "We are facing different events and they are increasing. One day, the forces that decided to create events were there, but today the situation has changed."
The Iranian statements today come after the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in an operation also attributed to Israel. Iran and its allies have vowed to respond to this assassination, in addition to Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Fouad Shukr in a strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut last week.
On Monday, the Group of Seven called for restraint and de-escalation in the Middle East, saying that recent events "threaten to fuel the flames of a wider conflict in the region."
"All parties once again need to stop engaging in the current cycle of destructive retaliatory violence, reduce tensions and move constructively towards de-escalation," the group said in a statement.
