British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he held separate talks last night with his Israeli and Iranian counterparts, seeking to help avoid an escalation to "catastrophic" regional war after Israel attacked Iranian military sites, reported Reuters, quoted by BTA.
"Today I held important talks with the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs (Israel Katz) and the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs (Abbas Aragchi). The United Kingdom continues to push for de-escalation and an end to the conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza, said Lammy in a statement following Saturday's Israeli airstrike on Iranian targets.
"A regional war would be catastrophic and not in anyone's interest," he also said.
Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian said the Islamic Republic was not seeking war, but promised an "appropriate response" of the Israeli strikes on Iranian military sites from the previous day, reported France Press, quoted by BTA.
"We are not looking for war, but we will defend the rights of our people and our country," Pezeshkian declared at a government meeting. "We will give an adequate response to the aggression of the Zionist regime," he added.
Meanwhile, it was reported that the death toll in the Israeli attack on targets in Iran has risen to five people, DPA reported.
Iranian media today unanimously reported the death of a civilian in the airstrikes, citing an organization that works with war victims.
At the time of the attack, he was in a suburb southwest of the capital Tehran.
According to officials, the Israeli attack killed four soldiers and damaged several military sites, such as radar installations.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that his country is offering a two-day ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian movement “Hamas”, in which two of the Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip would be released, reported in. &ldquo ;Ash Sharq Al Ausat”, quoted by BTA.
The proposal also includes the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, as well as the delivery of humanitarian aid to the blockaded enclave, al-Sisi said during a press conference with his Algerian counterpart Abdelmajid Teboun in Cairo. The idea is that if the two-day ceasefire goes into effect, negotiations for a permanent truce will take place.
For the first time, the head of state of Egypt has publicly disclosed such a plan. The statement comes as Mossad (Israel's foreign intelligence) chief David Barnea traveled to Doha for talks with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns.
A few days ago, an Egyptian delegation met with leaders of “Hamas” in Cairo as part of efforts to resume negotiations to end the conflict, Al-Qahera News TV reported.
The latest truce between Israel and “Hamas” there was a one-week break in November in the first weeks of the war, when 105 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
More than a year after the beginning of the conflict, which began with the unprecedented attack of “Hamas” and other Palestinian groups in southern Israel, Tel Aviv is at war with both “Hamas” in Gaza, as well as with “Hezbollah” in Lebanon and for the first time openly attacked their backer Iran this past weekend. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Israeli strikes “should neither be downplayed nor exaggerated,” but did not call for retaliation.
During a ceremony marking the Jewish anniversary of the October 7 attack, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that “not every objective can be achieved through military operations" and added that the release of the hostages “will require painful compromises”.
Meanwhile, the leader of Kurdish-led forces in Syria, Mazloum Abdi, has denied any link to the recent attack near Ankara, as claimed by Turkey, which carried out strikes that killed 17 people in Kurdish autonomous areas in northeastern Syria. , reported France Press, quoted by BTA.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that the two perpetrators of the attack on the complex of the Turkish national aerospace company "TUSAS" near Ankara are “infiltrated“ from Syria.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed struggle against Turkish authorities since 1984, claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed five people in addition to the two attackers and wounded 22 others.
“Turkey has no evidence to support its claims and we have no connection to the attack in Ankara,” Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), assured AFP.
“We have started an investigation and I can assure you that none of the attackers entered Turkey from Syrian territory,” he added in an interview with the agency late on Saturday evening.
Turkey responded to the attack by bombing "PKK targets" in Northern Syria and Iraq.
According to Mazloum Abdi, "17 people, including two soldiers, the rest are civilians" were killed in the strikes in northeastern Syria.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), which however has a wide network of sources in Syria, confirmed that around a hundred strikes were aimed at territories controlled by the Kurdish Autonomous Administration.
The NGO confirmed that in addition to Kurdish forces' positions, civilian infrastructure was also attacked, including silos, bakeries, power plants and oil installations.
Turkey considers the Kurdish “People's Defense Forces“ (SZN/YPG), which dominate the SDF, for an offshoot of the PKK, which it describes as a “terrorist group”.
The aim of these strikes “is not just to respond to what happened in Ankara (...), but to weaken the autonomous Kurdish administration, destroy it and make the residents leave,”, Abdi said.
According to the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, "the Turkish state is taking advantage of current events in the Middle East, focusing on Gaza, Lebanon and the Israeli attack on Iran", "to continue its attacks" against the Kurdish areas of Syria.
He assured that he was open to dialogue with Turkey to defuse tensions, but demanded an end to Ankara's attacks, which he said could escalate.
“We are ready to solve the problems with Turkey through dialogue, but not under the pressure of attacks,”, he stressed.
In a country torn apart by 12 years of war, the SDF controls a semi-autonomous Kurdish area where US forces, the largest contingent of the international anti-jihadist coalition in Syria, are also stationed, AFP notes.
Abdi also criticized his US allies for failing to protect Kurdish forces, saying the position of the international anti-jihadist coalition was "weak".
The Kurdish forces enjoy the support of Washington, which is also Ankara's ally in NATO.
“Their response is not at the level needed to stop the attacks and pressure must be put on Turkey,”, he added, saying strikes against Syria “not only affect us, but also affect their forces".
The SDF commander also expressed his concern about the upcoming American elections in November, assessing that the election of Donald Trump could weaken Washington's support for the Syrian Democratic Forces.
“In 2019, we had an unsuccessful experience with the administration of American President Trump“, he said.
Ankara launched its last major offensive in Syria in October 2019, when then-US President Donald Trump said US troops had completed their mission in Syria and would withdraw.
“But we are confident that the United States (...) will make its decisions” based on their “strategic interests” in the region, the SDF commander also said.