UN chief warns of ‘potential wider conflict’ from latest Middle East flareup

New York: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of “a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability” at the Security Council, where the US and Israel, on one side and Iran and Russia, on the other, traded charges over the latest flare-up in the Middle East.

“Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world,” Guterres said on Saturday at an emergency meeting of the Council following the US-Israel attack on Iran and its broad retaliation across the Gulf area.

Referring to the negotiations last week in Geneva between the US and Iran with Oman as the interlocutor and a technical meeting on the nuclear issues scheduled in Vienna next week, he said, “I deeply regret that this opportunity of diplomacy has been squandered.”

Condemning the attacks by both sides, he called for an immediate ceasefire.

US Permanent Representative Mike Waltz said that “it was a moment that required historical clarity” and the US will act to ensure that “the Iranian regime can never, ever threaten the world with a nuclear weapon”.

“It’s a matter of global security”, he said.

The US had a focused strategic objective of ending Iran’s missile system that threatened its neighbours.

He said that Iran had carried out “persistent aggression and violence” that cannot be ignored.

Iran’s Permanent Representative Amir Saeid Iravani accused the US and Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by hitting civilian areas.

“The invocation to ‘preemptive attack’, claims of imminent threat, or other unsubstantiated political claims, are unfounded legally, morally and politically,” he said, dismissing assertions about its nuclear programme, which he said were peaceful.

Russia’s Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia condemned the US-Israel attack, calling it “another unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent UN Member State”.

He asserted that it threatened the whole region and brought up US Vice President JD Vance’s statements about the Iraq War.

In 2023, Vance had said that “the Iraq campaign was ‘unforced’, that innocent Iraqis and Americans died as a result of it, and that Washington needed to learn this lesson”, Nebenzia said.

“However, as it turned out, this lesson was never learned,” he said.

Israel’s Permanent Representative Danny Danon referred to the frequent chants in Iran calling for the death of the US and Israel and said, “We are stopping extremism before it becomes unstoppable”.

With the Council polarised into inertia, no action was possible — and none was expected.

IANS