By Dave Graham
ZURICH, March 5 (Reuters) – Iran is seeking to escalate the conflict in the Middle East by attacking other countries in the region indiscriminately, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday.
“Iran is an exporter of war,” Kallas told reporters at a press conference with Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis during a visit to Zurich. “Right now, the regime tries to drag as many countries into this war as possible.”
Asked whether she thought Iran was trying to suck NATO into the conflict and whether the EU had a strategy to avoid getting drawn in, Kallas said Tehran was trying to “sow chaos” in the region and attacking other countries “indiscriminately”.
Both NATO and the EU had mechanisms enabling members to decide on whether they needed to call for help, she said. This had not been the case so far, she added.
Kallas said Tehran had been considerably weakened, and that she saw a chance for the Iranian people to “determine their own future.” The EU was continuing to work through diplomatic channels to pursue de-escalation in the region, she added.
In an earlier speech at the University of Zurich, Kallas said the Middle Eastern turmoil was a direct result of the erosion in international law, and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had encouraged others to act with impunity.
China, she said, was taking advantage of the undermining of international rules to extend its influence in the Asia-Pacific region and put pressure on Europe’s economies.
“Without restoring international law, together with accountability, we are doomed to see repeated violations of the law, disruption and chaos,” Kallas said.
Turning to the United States, she said Washington’s foreign policy shift had “rocked the transatlantic relationship to its foundation, with aftershocks in other parts of the world,” and calling its impact on the international order “seismic.”
“The current direction is a new world order characterised by competition and coercive power politics, a world order dominated by a handful of military powers who aim to establish and secure spheres of influence,” Kallas said.
(Reporting by Dave Graham; editing by James Mackenzie and Alistair Bell)
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