Israel Warns of North Korea-Like Threat, Defends Iran Strikes in Region

Azar said Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and EAM S Jaishankar remain in touch over the developments.

"They exchanged views on the situation, and we are communicating to all our friends and colleagues, the aims of this operation, the concerns of the State of Israel and the reasons why we could no longer live with this threat," the Israeli Envoy told ANI.

Defending strikes on Iran, he said that Iranians could have been immune and developed their nuclear weapon if they had been allowed a status quo.

"The imminent danger is that the Iranians will not only go underground, but go underground to the extent that they will be completely immune to an attack targeting their capabilities. And, they decided to build a nuclear weapon. So, we don't want to get into a situation as we have with North Korea, for example. That would be terrible for the region," he said.

"It would mean that the Iranian regime would have carte blanche to intimidate and attack any country in the region, even in a more aggressive way than the way that they've been doing that in the past. This action, I think, is going to take is going to make the entire region of West Asia a much more stable region than it was," he added.

Azar further said that the Iranian forces are a bunch of ruthless killers. "We don't know whether they will be able to do so, because don't forget the Basij forces and the Revolutionary Guard Corps are ruthless. They are a bunch of killers. They have been, without hesitation, killing multiple people, tens of thousands of Iranians, only a few weeks back."

"They've been trying to kill dissidents all around the world for decades now. It's not an easy thing to rise up against such oppression. We hope that Iranians will do that," he added.

Iranians should be given hope, the Israeli envoy said, calling it a "moral responsibility" of both the US and his own country.

"We are hearing a lot of voices of thanks from a lot of Iranians around the world and in Iran itself. Many people are celebrating this moment, and I hope they will be able to turn this moment into a moment of change that will bring a brighter future and a more rosy future for the people of Iran. They deserve a better future free from this terrible oppression that they have been suffering from for decades," he added.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump claimed that Iran's new leadership wants to talk with his administration, and he plans to do so. "They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them," he was quoted as saying by The Atlantic magazine.

"They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long," Trump added, as quoted by Al Jazeera.

US-Israel joint military strikes on Iran led to the death of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his family on Sunday.

Following the strikes, Iran launched a wave of strikes, using drones and missiles targeting multiple arab countries in the region, as a retaliatory action by the Islamic Republic.

- ANI