Iran’s top parliamentary security official has issued a stark warning to Ukraine, declaring that any military action against the Islamic Republic “always has a cost,” following a deadly Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea.
Head of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Azizi, took to X early Monday to fire back at Kyiv, asserting that the United States and Israel are well aware of Tehran’s capacity for retaliation. “Ukraine will likely soon realize that Iran will not leave actions against itself unanswered,” Azizi wrote, cautioning that the “list of those who have made miscalculations continues to expand.”
The warning comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Saturday that his forces had successfully targeted vessels he claimed were involved in transporting Iranian military cargo, alongside a warship, in the Caspian Sea. However, Tehran has vehemently rejected this characterization, maintaining that the strike hit a civilian commercial vessel, resulting in the death of one sailor and injuries to another.
Escalating the diplomatic response, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned the attack on Sunday as a “clear violation of the United Nations Charter.” In a post on X, Araghchi assured that the assault was carried out “at Israel’s instigation to drag Europe into war.” He further reinforced Tehran’s resolve during separate telephone conversations with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, stressing that Ukraine’s actions “cannot go unanswered.”
As diplomatic channels scramble to contain the fallout, the incident marks a significant escalation in the peripheral tensions of the wider Ukraine-Russia conflict, raising fears of a direct military confrontation between Kyiv and Tehran.
Source: Iranian media (edited by Al-Manar)