Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said neighbouring countries will no longer be targeted unless an attack originates from there, as the war launched by the United States and Israel, which triggered sustained retaliation from Tehran across the Gulf and beyond, enters its second week.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump threatened to escalate the bombing of Iran on Saturday.
“Today Iran will be hit very hard!” Trump posted on his Truth Social media platform.
“Under serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death, because of Iran’s bad behavior, are areas and groups of people that were not considered for targeting up until this moment in time,” he added, without elaborating.
Pezeshkian said the Iranian interim leadership council approved the motion to stop attacks on neighbouring nations. In remarks carried by Iranian media, the president also apologised to neighbouring countries for the strikes that took place in recent days.
Trump issued a maximalist position on Friday to Iran demanding “unconditional surrender”, but Pezeshkian baulked at the comments.
“That we surrender unconditionally is a dream that they must take with themselves to the grave. What we adhere to are international laws and humanitarian frameworks,” he said.
The Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) also weighed in.
“Following the statements of the president, the armed forces once again declare that they respect the interests and national sovereignty of neighbouring countries and, up to this point, have committed no aggression against them,” an IRGC statement carried by state media said.
“However, should the previous hostile actions continue, all military bases and interests of criminal America and the fake Zionist regime on land, at sea, and in the air across the region will be considered primary targets and will come under the powerful and crushing strikes of the mighty armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
‘IRGC now in charge fully’
Pezeshkian’s message is overshadowed by the Revolutionary Guard’s dominance, said Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar.
“Political figures in Iran are responsible for running state affairs and ‘non-strategic’ affairs. But when it comes to strategic affairs, such as the country’s foreign and security policies, politicians don’t have a say including the president, who, according to the constitution, is the number two in charge – this is a very well-known fact in Iran,” Serdar said.
The centre of power lies with the office of the supreme leader and with the IRGC, even during peacetime, he added.
Now that the country faces what it sees as a war of survival, Pezeshkian is not in a position to stop any attack, and his message to regional countries carries no weight, Serdar said.
“The IRGC is now in charge fully, and they will decide whether to attack or not,” Serdar said, adding that IRGC chief, Ahmad Vahidi, is considered one of the “most radical commanders” of the group since its foundation.
“I don’t think Pezeshkian or other politicians will have any influence when it comes to security politics,” he added.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, all the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nations have been targeted because of the presence of US assets within and around their borders. Iraq, Jordan, Azerbaijan and Turkiye have also been caught in the crosshairs.
In the Gulf, there have been deaths, damage and major disruption to flights, closure of airspace, and a heavy knock-on impact on oil and gas production reverberating across the world.
Qatar’s Energy Minister Saad al-Kaabi, meanwhile, has said exports from the Gulf region could come to a halt “within weeks” if the war on Iran continues to escalate, throwing global energy markets into turmoil.
Al-Kaabi told The Financial Times newspaper in an interview published on Friday that if the war continues for weeks, “GDP growth around the world will be impacted.
“Everybody’s energy price is going to go higher. There will be shortages of some products, and there will be a chain reaction of factories that cannot supply,” al-Kaabi was quoted as saying.
The only US deaths in the war so far came when Iran attacked a US command centre in Kuwait, killing six.
More than 1,200 Iranians have been killed in US-Israeli attacks in the first week of the war.
