Iran president accuses Israel of seeking conflict, says opposes war

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday accused Israel of seeking a wider conflict, insisting that Tehran has been deliberately holding back in the hope of securing regional peace.

"We know more than anyone else that if a larger war were to erupt in the Middle East, it will not benefit anyone throughout the world. It is Israel that seeks to create this wider conflict," Pezeshkian told a roundtable with journalists as he attended the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Pezeshkian, inaugurated in July as a reformist within the cleric-run state, was making his U.N. debut as Israel strikes Lebanon following a wave of attacks on handheld communications devices targeting Hezbollah.

Tensions soared immediately after his inauguration as the visiting political chief of Hamas, the Palestinian militants who attacked Israel on October 7 last year, was assassinated in an operation in Tehran widely attributed to Israel.

Pezeshkian alluded to appeals from the West for Iran not to retaliate so as not to jeopardize U.S. efforts for a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

"We tried to not respond. They kept telling us we are within reach of peace, perhaps in a week or so," he said.

"But we never reached that elusive peace. Every day Israel is committing more atrocities and killing more and more people -- old, young, men, women, children, hospitals, other facilities," he said.

He did not reply directly when asked if Iran would now respond more directly to Israel.

"We always keep hearing, well, Hezbollah fired a rocket. If Hezbollah didn't even do that minimum, who would defend them?" he said.

"Curiously enough, we keep being labeled as the perpetrator of insecurity. But look at the situation for where it is."