Russia is pushing back against President Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran, calling them ‘illegal and unacceptable.’
Trump in recent days has increased his threats against Iran and warned that there could be direct conflict if the Islamic Republic doesn’t stop arming the Houthi terrorist group or halt its nuclear program. Russia, meanwhile, said Thursday that it’s committed to finding solutions to Iran’s nuclear program that respects its rights to peaceful nuclear energy, according to Reuters.
‘The use of military force by Iran’s opponents in the context of the settlement is illegal and unacceptable,’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quoted by the news agency as saying.
‘Threats from outside to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure facilities will inevitably lead to an irreversible global catastrophe. These threats are simply unacceptable,’ she reportedly added.
Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer specializing in Russia’s war-fighting strategy and Putin’s thinking, told Fox News Digital Thursday that ‘Russia’s statement is consistent with the diplomatic posture that it’s trying to project of being Iran’s strategic partner.
‘In reality, Russia and Iran are not natural allies. They share a very turbulent history and there’s plenty of distrust in the relationship. The Russians don’t trust Iranians to have a fully operational militarized nuclear capability,’ she continued. ‘But they would never admit it in public. At one point, during the Obama administration, Moscow was siding with Washington in terms of economic sanctions on Iran and complied with Washington’s request not to sell S-300s air defense missiles to Tehran.
‘Putin is angling to serve as a broker between the Trump administration and the Iranian government on the nuclear issue,’ she also said.
Trump’s overtures via a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to jump-start talks on dismantling Tehran’s illicit nuclear weapons program, were met with rejection on Sunday.
Trump told NBC the day before, ‘If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.’
‘But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago,’ he added.
Secondary ‘tariffs,’ or sanctions, would mean slapping financial penalties on any country that does business with Iran.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Sunday, ‘We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,’ according to the Associated Press. He added, ‘They must prove that they can build trust.’
Iran is enriching uranium to 60%, just shy of the 90% weapons-grade. Experts say it could have a nuclear weapon within weeks if it were to take the final steps to building one. Fox News Digital reported in late March that Iran’s regime has enriched enough uranium to manufacture six nuclear weapons, according to a U.N. atomic agency report.
Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal, Caitlin McFall and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.