Foreign Minister: Croatia could try to extract its citizens in the Middle-East tomorrow

The joint Israeli-American attack on Iran continues, with Tehran being subjected to the most violent airstrikes since the start of campaign. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has also launched aerial and ground attacks against Lebanon. Iran has responded with drone attacks against Israel and the US embassy in Saudi Arabia. Iranian authorities say that almost eight hundred people have been killed in the first four days of the Israeli-American attack.

According to US President Donald Trump the joint attack has left Iran's air defenses, air force, navy and leadership in tatters, claiming that Tehran is calling for negotiations, but that it is too late for that now: “This was our last best chance to strike, what we're doing right now, and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime. We have the strongest and most powerful, by far, military in the world, and we will easily prevail. We're already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever it takes. Right from the beginning we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.”

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to Democrat's claims that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the United States: “There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded. Because, the Department of Was assessed that if we did that, if we waited for them to hit us first - after they were attacked (...) by someone else (...) Israel attacked them - they hit us first and we waited for them to hit us, we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively, in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Iran never posed a threat, but that Rubio had admitted that Washington had joined the conflict on Israel's behalf. He added that the conflict has spread throughout the region because US bases there are now legitimate targets for Iran: “We are not fighting our neighbors, but the American forces situated in the bases in the territory of those countries. Furthermore, we are fighting the Americans who attack us day and night with all means, just as we are fighting Israel. If American bases in the region evacuate their soldiers and move them to hotels, for example, this in and of itself becomes a problem. We will defend ourselves with all available means. We will defend our nation.”

Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman announced today that if it receives permission, Croatia will send Croatia Airlines planes to pick up Croatian citizens stranded in the region: “We would begin tomorrow with a flight to Dubai, maybe Abu Dhabi but most likely Dubai, because that's where the highest concentration of Croatian citizens is. Our General Consul in Dubai is compiling a register through the Early Warning and Crisis Management System, by which every citizen receives information via applications on their mobile phones, and can register themselves.”

Additionally, there are several hundred Croatian sailors in the war-torn Persian Gulf, as the Strait of Hormuz - the world's most important route for oil exports from the region - has effectively been closed. However, so far there have been no reports of Croatian sailors being killed or injured in the conflict.

Source: HRT