UK, France, Germany urge Israel to refrain from escalation
Britain, France and Germany have called on Israel to refrain from further escalation following the regime's attacks on residential areas and nuclear sites in some Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran.
In a statement released on Friday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said the premier held a call with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the situation.
“The leaders called on all sides to refrain from further escalation that could further destabilize the region,” the statement said.
The muted response comes hours after Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that the Iranian people expected the European Union and the broader international community to condemn Israel's "criminal attack" earlier in the day.
"The government and people of Iran expect the international community, especially the European Union, to condemn this criminal attack," Araghchi told his Italian counterpart Antonio Tajani in a phone call.
Some European allies of Israel were worried that Israel was ratcheting up aggression across the region.
“Escalation serves no one in the region,” Starmer of Britain earlier said, while the European Union’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called the situation “dangerous.”
Those remarks followed a growing chorus of European condemnation of Israel over the past few months for escalating the campaign of genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip and for holding back humanitarian aid as the population in the blockaded Palestinian region edges closer to the brink of starvation.
Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior Middle East policy expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, called an “unprecedented” and “unprovoked” attack against Iran that risked “an active war scenario between the two sides.”
Some of the sharpest condemnations on Friday came from countries in the region.
Egypt, which has a longstanding treaty with Israel, called the latest Israeli strikes a violation of international law and “a direct threat to regional and international peace and security.”
In the early hours of Friday, June 13, Israel launched airstrikes targeting multiple Iranian cities, including the capital Tehran.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei asserted that the regime must now await “severe punishment” for its aggression.
Meanwhile, the new commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Pakpour vowed that the Islamic Republic would exact painful revenge on the Israeli regime.
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