TEHRAN: Iran's foreign minister on Saturday discounted the
prospectof a new
war in the region because
Tehran was opposed and no party was under the "illusion" it could be confronted.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have been on the rise as the United States has deployed a carrier group and B-52 bombers over what it termed Iranian "threats".
"We are certain... there will not be a
war since neither we want a
war nor does anyone have the illusion they can confront
Iran in the region," Mohammad Javad
Zarif told state-run news agency IRNA at the end
of a visit to China.
US President Donald "Trump does not want
war but the people around him are pushing him towards
war under the pretext
of making America stronger against
Iran,"
Zarif added.
Iran-
US relations hit a new low last year as
US Trump pulled out
of a 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed unilateral sanctions that had been lifted in exchange for Tehran scaling back its nuclear programme.
Make sense of the
2019 Lok Sabha elections and results on May 23 with TOI. Follow us to track latest news, live updates, news analysis and cutting-edge data analytics. Track live
election results, the big trends and fastest updates on counting day with India's largest news network.