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US and EU diplomats are holding urgent discussions around the Middle East in a race to try to head off the threat of a full-blown regional war after Israel targeted Hizbollah and Hamas leaders in Beirut and Tehran.
Enrique Mora, one of the EU’s most senior diplomats, was holding critical talks with officials in Iran’s capital on Wednesday after the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, which was blamed on Israel, as Brett McGurk, the White House’s top official in the Middle East, held discussions in Saudi Arabia.
The western diplomatic pressure comes as fears over a broader regional conflict soared as Iran and Hizbollah separately vowed to avenge the attacks.
Officials said the talks were focused on convincing Tehran to either not respond or to carry out symbolic action, after Israeli diplomats told western interlocutors that their military did not plan further operations.
“Everyone since last night is putting pressure on Tehran to not respond and to contain this,” said one western diplomat involved in the discussions.
Israel has vowed to hold Hamas’s leadership accountable for the militant group’s attacks of October 7, which sparked the wider war in Gaza and drastically ratcheted up tensions in the Middle East, but it did not claim responsibility for the attack in Tehran.
Israel said the Beirut strike, which killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hizbollah commander, was in response to a deadly rocket attack that killed 12 people in the occupied Golan Heights on Sunday.
Mora, who is political director and deputy secretary-general of the EU’s foreign service, has extensive experience of negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme and was in Tehran for the inauguration of new President Masoud Pezeshkian when Wednesday’s attack took place.
“Mora used his interactions with officials of the incoming Iranian administration in Tehran to convey the EU’s position on all issues of concern related to Iran in line with our policy of critical engagement,” said EU foreign policy spokesperson Peter Stano.
The Biden administration on Wednesday held urgent consultations with Israel as well as other allies and partners with influence over Iran to try to pull all parties back from the brink of conflict.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke with his Jordanian and Qatari counterparts while US defence secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Israeli equivalent Yoav Gallant.
McGurk, who was in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday as part of a previously scheduled trip, will next head to Cairo for further talks related to the Gaza war.
Washington had tried to convince Israel to take a measured response to the rocket attack in the Golan Heights, with diplomats warning of the consequences of retaliating deep inside Lebanon. The attack in Tehran has only added to US officials’ concerns that any response could tip into a regional conflict.
The White House tried to play down the likelihood of full-blown war even as officials privately conceded the moment is among the most sensitive since October 7.
“We don’t believe that an escalation is inevitable and there’s no sign that an escalation is imminent,” US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday, adding that the US is still trying to reach a ceasefire deal.
Blinken said the US had no prior knowledge or involvement in the strike on Haniyeh but said it underscored the importance of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
“The imperative of getting a ceasefire, the importance that has for everyone, remains,” he said in an interview with Channel News Asia on Wednesday.
However, US officials acknowledged the attack in Tehran underscored the challenge they face in bringing about a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages, as Haniyeh was Hamas’s main interlocutor with mediators.
“Haniyeh, he was one of the chief negotiators, that makes things much more challenging right now in regards to the hostage negotiations and it makes a hot situation even hotter,” said senator Ben Cardin, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee.
He added: “We recognise the targets are terrorists, they had blood on their hands . . . but in the circumstances going into sovereign countries presents challenges for the United States.”
Current and former officials said where the conflict goes from here may depend more on Tehran’s calculations than Israel’s.
“Washington’s ability to shape events is likely to be rather limited,” said Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence officer who is now director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
“In the immediate term, Iran, Hizbollah, and Hamas’s responses to Shukr and Haniyeh’s deaths will drive the likelihood for a regionalised war or reversion to tit-for-tat attacks,” he added.