From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Iranian president denies Tehran’s regional standing has taken blow over past year
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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian denies the Islamic Republic’s regional standing has weakened over the past year, which has seen the collapse of the Tehran-backed Assad regime in Syria, Israel’s dealing of serious blows to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Gaza-ruling terror group Hamas, and the exposure of Iran’s inability to thwart Israeli airstrikes on its soil.
“I do not see any link,” he says in an interview with NBC News. “Comparing to last year inside the country, we’re more coherent. We’re more robust. We have better participation. We have a more solid security in the country.”
He also insists Iran will be ready to defend itself if Iranian nuclear facilities are targeted.
“You see, naturally enough, we will react to any action. We do not fear war, but we do not seek it,” he says, adding that “I solemnly hope that this will not transpire because it will be to the detriment of all the actors, not only and merely us.”
Pezeshkian again denies that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, saying suggestions otherwise are “to fabricate some sort of a pretext.”
Additionally, he repeats Iranian claims that the Islamic Republic did not attempt to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump — which the US Justice Department has charged suspects over — in revenge for the 2020 American airstrike that killed Quds Force Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who Pezeshkian spoke at a memorial ceremony for earlier this month.
The Times of Israel Community.