TEHRAN- Although Iran states that it opposes the murderous war that Israel is waging on the Gaza Strip, the strategy that the U.S. and the Israeli regime are using in the region makes the conflict’s expansion highly likely.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian made the remarks in an interview with Financial Times during a recent visit to Geneva, Switzerland.

Iran’s senior diplomat stated in the interview that in the early weeks and days of the conflict, American officials relayed messages to Iran via diplomatic channels indicating that Washington was not interested in the expansion of the war’s scope and advising Iran to use prudence.

“Over the past 40 days, messages have been exchanged between Iran and the U.S. via the U.S. interests’ section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran,” Amir Abdollahian said.

Iran’s foreign minister went on to add, “In response to the U.S., we said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but due to the approach adopted by the U.S. and Israel in the region, if the Israeli war crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered, and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.”

Amir Abdollahian continued that the U.S. has also communicated with the Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon, requesting that it exercise self-restraint. 

The foreign minister of Iran added that in spite of those statements, the U.S. has given Israel its complete backing and given the regime a variety of weaponry and military hardware, which has caused the conflict to escalate.

He made it clear that Washington’s unrestrained backing of Tel Aviv is evidence that the country is not sincere in its claims that it opposes the conflict in Gaza spreading further.

Amir Abdollahian also noted in the interview that, in his opinion, “the expansion of the scope of the war in the region has already started.”

“The fact that the Yemeni army issues official statements and attacks the occupied territories with missiles and drones means the war has begun to expand, or the fact that Hezbollah is fighting with a third of the Israeli army shows the war has expanded,” Iran’s foreign minister stressed. 

He pointed out that because “they have everything, and they produce missiles and drones themselves.” Palestinian resistance groups have never urged Iran to join the conflict.

On October 7, the Israeli regime began its deadly attack on the blockaded enclave in response to a surprise offensive by Hamas. Over 29,800 Palestinians have been injured so far in the conflict, and at least 12,300 Palestinians have been killed, more than 5,000 of them children.

Since the outbreak of the war, hundreds of consignments of weapons have been sent to the regime by the United States, Israel’s largest and most enduring ally.

In addition to attempting to defend the brutal bombardment of Gaza by the Tel Aviv regime as an act of “self-defense,” Washington has been using its veto power to thwart resolutions at the UN Security Council that demanded the occupying regime stop its brutality.