Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied that Iran has targeted civilian or residential areas in the Middle East, emphasizing that it has targeted only US assets in the region, in a Sunday interview with the Qatari-owned Al-Araby al-Jadeed.
"We did not attack any residential or civilian targets," Al-Araby al-Jadeed quoted him as saying. "There may have been collateral damage in residential areas, which is normal in any war, and we took every precaution to avoid it."
Araghchi emphasized that Iran has only struck American bases in the region in retaliation for attacks launched against it, and that Tehran is ready to form a committee with the neighboring Gulf and Middle Eastern countries "to determine the nature of the targets attacked and whether they were American."
Iran has repeatedly launched attacks against Middle Eastern and European countries, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Cyprus, and Turkey, who have in response all called for Iran to cease its attacks on their territories, which have not only sustained damage to US military bases but also harmed energy facilities and residential areas.
Addressing Iran's overnight strikes targeting Citibank in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Araghchi stated in the interview that they were retaliation for the recent attack on the state-run Bank Sepah in Tehran.
Sepah, as The Jerusalem Post reported at the time, is largely responsible for paying the salaries of Iran's military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and is expected to prevent it from paying salaries for a period, forcing it to find alternative solutions.
Araghchi: US started war, not Iran
According to Araghchi, Iran's military has declared an "eye for an eye" policy, and that for every bit of infrastructure the US attacks, it will strike American bases and assets in the region in the same manner.
"We are compelled to respond," he was quoted as saying, adding that "CENTCOM itself admits to using its bases in these countries."
Further, he claimed that the war was not of Iran's making, but "rather, it is the calamity that the United States has created for the region. This is a war they started, not us."
"Unfortunately, the Arab states refrained from condemning these attacks, and instead of condemning the United States and Israel for this attack, they went to the [United Nations] Security Council to condemn us."
James Genn, Amichai Stein, and Reuters contributed to this report.