“The Islamic Republic of Iran did not start this war, but it will not hesitate in defending its people and its land,” the country’s first vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, said in a statement reported by Mehr, a semiofficial news agency. He added that Iran “will determine when and how this war will end.”
Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, vowed that if energy sites were attacked, Iran would target more infrastructure in the region used by Israel, the United States and American allies, including “fuel, energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure.” He added that the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil supply route, would be “completely closed” until any damaged Iranian power plants were rebuilt, in a statement reported by state-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the state broadcaster.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, warned on Sunday that attacks on Iranian critical infrastructure would mean that “energy and oil facilities across the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be irreversibly destroyed.” The result, he said on social media, would be a spike in global oil prices that have already climbed by about 50 percent during the war.
Mr. Aref — who narrowly escaped being killed in an Israeli bombing this month, according to Iranian news media — said that Mr. Trump’s threats to destroy civilian infrastructure “showed the real target of these policies is directly the Iranian people themselves.”
“Attacking a nation’s vital infrastructure means a direct threat against its people and a clear violation of humanitarian principles and international law,” he said. “An attack on Iran’s infrastructure will create widespread blackouts in the region.”
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