news

[Global Times Report] According to Reuters and CBS News, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on the 5th local time that at what U.S. Secretary of State Blinken called a "critical moment" in the Middle East, the United States has been urging other countries through diplomatic channels to tell Iran that an escalation of the situation in the Middle East is not in their interests.

Miller said, "One of the main points of our engagement is to urge countries to send a message to Iran, to urge countries to make it clear to Iran that it is not in their interest to escalate this conflict, and it is not in their interest to launch another attack on Israel," the report said.

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller file photo source: U.S. media

Reuters said that at the press conference, Miller did not make it clear whether the US message had been conveyed to Iran, nor did he specify through which channel.

According to reports, US Secretary of State Blinken called on all parties (in the Middle East) to "take measures to ease tensions" at a ceremony signing a memorandum of understanding with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong that day. He called it a "critical moment" in the Middle East.

Blinken also said the United States was engaging in "intense diplomacy around the clock" to help ease tensions amid concerns that Iran was preparing a retaliatory strike on Israel.

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) confirmed on July 31 that Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Hamas Political Bureau, was killed in an attack in the Iranian capital Tehran in the early hours of the same day. According to AFP, on August 5, local time, Iran said it had the "legal right" to respond to the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Tehran last week, and Iran accused Israel of carrying out the assassination.

According to Bloomberg News on August 3, Israeli defense officials said that before Iran may launch a retaliatory attack, they are coordinating with the United States and Britain to prepare for Iran to launch another attack similar to the one in April this year, which was repelled by its allies.