Russian President Vladimir Putin joined international calls for cool heads in the Middle East as tensions remain high following Iran\u2019s unprecedented attack on Israel over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Vladimir Putin expressed hope that all sides would show reasonable restraint and prevent a new round of confrontation fraught with catastrophic consequences for the entire region,\u2019 the Kremlin said in a readout of a call with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to a translation by The Moscow Times. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Ebrahim Raisi noted that Iran\u2019s actions were forced and limited in nature: At the same time, he stressed Tehran\u2019s disinterest in further escalation of tensions,\u2019 the Kremlin added. \u2018Both sides stated that the root cause of the current events in the Middle East is the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018In this regard, the principled approaches of Russia and Iran in favor of an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, easing the difficult humanitarian situation, and creating conditions for a political and diplomatic settlement of the crisis were confirmed,\u2019 the Kremlin concluded, adding that the call discussed \u2018in detail\u2019 the airstrike on Iran\u2019s consulate in Damascus.<\/p>\n
On Saturday night, Iran launched hundreds of drones and a mixture of cruise and ballistic missiles in retaliation for strikes against its diplomatic mission, or, as other reports claim, an adjoining Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound in Damascus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The strike killed seven IRGC members, including Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the senior commander of the forces since the assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani in 2020.<\/p>\n
Israel never took credit for the strike, but other countries, including the United States, attributed the attack to the Jewish state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly wanted to retaliate directly, but he changed his plans after President Biden told him to \u2018take the win\u2019 and stressed the U.S. would not support any direct response to Iran\u2019s strike. Instead, Israel struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Israel continued to stress a desire and intent to retaliate against Iran, with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant telling U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Sunday that Israel had no choice but to respond.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Israel Defense Forces\u2019 (IDF) Chief of Staff Gen. Herzi Halevi added on Monday that \u2018Israel is considering next steps\u2019 and that \u2018the launch of so many missiles and drones to Israeli territory will be answered with retaliation,\u2019 Axios reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The insistence on retaliation, despite pressure from Israel\u2019s closest and arguably most vital ally to do otherwise, continues to worry the international community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The Middle East is on the brink,\u2019 United Nations Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres told a Security Council meeting called on Sunday in response to the strikes. \u2018The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict. Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Biden has continued to increase his pursuit of a ceasefire deal, telling Iraq\u2019s prime minister that the U.S. is \u2018committed to a ceasefire that will bring the hostages home and prevent the conflict from spreading beyond what it already has.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018The United States is committed to Israel\u2019s security,\u2019 the president said, according to a readout of the phone call. White House national security communications spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the president is \u2018certainly not looking for a war with Iran, and I am confident that Prime Minister Netanyahu is aware of the president\u2019s concerns.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reuters contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Russian President Vladimir Putin joined international calls for cool heads in the Middle East as tensions remain high following Iran\u2019s unprecedented attack on Israel over the weekend.\u00a0 \u2018Vladimir Putin expressed hope that all sides would show reasonable restraint and prevent a new round of confrontation fraught with catastrophic consequences for the entire region,\u2019 the Kremlin <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18053","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}