Former Iran FM: Israel should know Iran no place for hit-and-runs

“We respond to the Zionist regime’s declared policies with our declared policies and to its implemented and invasive policies with serious reciprocation that fills the regime with remorse,” Manouchehr Mottaki, who was foreign minister under former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told Fars News Agency on Sunday.

“The Americans learned about this approach [of Iran] both with what happened to that drone in the Persian Gulf and in the Ein al-Assad base; and therefore, they speak and potentially act in the area of military attacks with much caution, because they know the Islamic Republic stands on ceremony with no one when it comes to its security and that’s why it’s the safest country in the region,” Mottaki added.

Referring to the Iranian missile strikes on Israeli Mossad positions in Iraq’s Erbil early on Sunday, Mottaki said the Israeli regime had better keep repeating to itself the lesson that “Iran is no place for hit-and-runs.”

He said Iran had warned the Israelis previously too that any hostile action would be responded to, and noted they should have known that their move to kill two Iranian advisers with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), who were in Syria on an invitation by the Syrian government, would not go unanswered.

“If Iran’s response is not produced in Tel Aviv, it’s most likely because they (the Israelis) have been shown mercy,” he said.

In a statement later in the day, the IRGC said the missile raid had been in response to an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital of Damascus last Monday in which two IRGC officers were killed.

Mottaki said the Iranian people expected that Israel be held responsible for every attack on an Iranian element.