Iran’s President Stirs Debate after Saying He Was Ready to Ease Tensions with Israel

A handout photo made available by the Iranian presidency shows Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) greeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a meeting on the sideline of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, US, 24 September 2024. (EPA/Handout/Iranian presidency)
A handout photo made available by the Iranian presidency shows Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) greeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a meeting on the sideline of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, US, 24 September 2024. (EPA/Handout/Iranian presidency)
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Iran’s President Stirs Debate after Saying He Was Ready to Ease Tensions with Israel

A handout photo made available by the Iranian presidency shows Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) greeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a meeting on the sideline of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, US, 24 September 2024. (EPA/Handout/Iranian presidency)
A handout photo made available by the Iranian presidency shows Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (L) greeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during a meeting on the sideline of the UN general assembly meeting in New York, US, 24 September 2024. (EPA/Handout/Iranian presidency)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s announcement that his country was ready to ease tensions with Israel sparked a heated debate, even after the government denied the statements.

“We’re willing to put all our weapons aside so long as Israel is willing to do the same,” Pezeshkian said according to a voice recording attributed to him.

“We’re not seeking to destabilize the region,” he told reporters ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York, said Bloomberg.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi strongly denied that the president had made the statements.

Araghchi blamed a “hostile” television outlet – which he did not name – for seeking to stoke tensions over Pezeshkian’s comments.

He told state television on Tuesday: “Look at Pezeshkian’s statements. They have revolved around condemning the Israeli crimes and supporting the Resistance Axis.”

“Supporting the Resistance Axis is one of the foundations of our foreign policy,” he declared.

A government statement had also earlier sought to deny the remarks. “We would like to clarify that the statements were not at all made by the president. Rather, he condemned Israel’s crimes in Gaza and Lebanon,” it stressed.

The Fars news agency, however, confirmed that the president had indeed made the statements.

Later on Tuesday, Pezeshkian cast doubt on Hezbollah’s ability to confront Israel alone.

“Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western countries, by European countries and the United States,” Pezeshkian said in an interview with CNN translated from Farsi to English.

He called on the international community to “not allow Lebanon to become another Gaza,” in response to a question if Iran would use its influence with Hezbollah to urge restraint.

Pezeshkian’s contradicted remarks by leading Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) member Mohsen Rezaei, who said Hezbollah boasts “unprecedented capabilities to innovate, change and adjust.”

Its human capacities are unmatched and will not run out in a hundred years, he said on Sunday.



Romania, Bulgaria Fully Join EU's Borderless Schengen Zone

A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
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Romania, Bulgaria Fully Join EU's Borderless Schengen Zone

A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV
A general view of the Durankulak border point between Bulgaria and Romania, 01 January 2025. EPA/VASSIL DONEV

Romania and Bulgaria scrapped land border controls to become full members of the European Union's Schengen free-travel area on Wednesday, joining an expanded bloc of countries whose residents can travel without passport checks.
Fireworks lit the sky at a crossing close to the Bulgarian border town of Ruse just after the stroke of midnight as the Bulgarian and Romanian interior ministers symbolically raised a barrier on the Friendship Bridge straddling the Danube River, Reuters reported. The crossing is a major transit point for international trade.
Checks on travelling by air and sea from Bulgaria and Romania were lifted in March 2024, but land checks continued until Austria last month dropped a veto it had maintained on the grounds that more was needed to stop irregular migration.
Border checks between France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were first dropped in 1985. The Schengen area now covers 25 of the 27 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.
Ireland and Cyprus are not members of the Schengen zone.