Israel, US cannot do anything against Tehran, says Iran foreign ministry

Iran said on Monday that U.S. and Israeli threats against it were a blatant violation of international law and that they could not "do a damn thing" to hurt Tehran.

 

The comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem on Sunday and said their countries were determined to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions and its influence in the Middle East.

Netanyahu said Israel had dealt a "mighty blow" to Iran since the start of the war in Gaza and that with the support of U.S. President Donald Trump "I have no doubt we can and will finish the job". 

Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei responded: "When it comes to a country like Iran, they cannot do a damn thing". 

"You cannot threaten Iran on one hand and claim to support dialogue on the other hand," Baghaei said, state media reported.

Trump has expressed an openness to a deal with Tehran while also reinstating the "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran that was applied during his first term to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

While stopping short of renewing a ban on direct talks with Washington decreed in 2018, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has criticised Trump's previous administration for not honouring its promises. 

In 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of Tehran's 2015 nuclear pact with world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy. 

A year later, Iran reacted by breaching the pact's nuclear curbs, accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade. It says its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes Despite spokesman Baghaei's defiant words, Tehran's influence throughout the region has weakened severely with its regional allies - known as the "Axis of Resistance" - either dismantled or badly hurt since the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in December. 

The Axis includes not only Hamas but also Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various Shi'ite armed groups in Iraq and Syria. 

Over the 16 months since the Gaza war erupted, Israel has assassinated leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, and Israel and Iran have carried out limited attacks against each other.