Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that any attack on Lebanese capital Beirut would trigger a "full-scale resumption" of the Middle East war, as Israel pressed its attacks in southern Lebanon.
"Any attack on Beirut will have grave consequences and will lead to a full-scale resumption of the war," the Tasnim news agency quoted Araghchi as telling Lebanon's Al Mayadeen TV.
"Our armed forces are ready to strike Israel if it attacks Beirut."
Araghchi said earlier that Tehran would continue military strikes against sites allegedly used in attacks on Iran, after the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) fired missiles on Kuwait and Bahrain.
“Our Armed Forces are conducting self-defence strikes on sites the US is permitted to use to attack civilian shipping and violate the ceasefire,” Araghchi said in a post on X on Wednesday.
“Any hostile act will be met with an immediate, decisive response. What sanctions and war failed to achieve won’t be won with more war,” he added.
‘Aggressively cooperative’
The remarks came in response to comments by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who praised the cooperation of Washington’s regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.
“I think our allies in the region have been very cooperative — some, obviously, very aggressively cooperative, like the UAE, for example. Kuwait’s been fantastic in this part,” Rubio said.
Regional tensions have escalated since late February after the US and Israel launched air strikes on Iran, killing more than 3,000 people, including then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and several senior military commanders and government officials.
Tehran, in retaliation, has targeted Israel and Gulf countries that host US bases and closed the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global shipping.
A Pakistan-brokered ceasefire took effect on April 8, and efforts to reach a broader agreement have continued since then.
The IRGC on Wednesday said it attacked a US base in Kuwait and the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, in retaliation for a US overnight attack on its communications tower on southern Qeshm Island.
