The Guardian:

The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said Tehran has shown restraint so far in its response to the Israeli assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh because it believes Israel has been trying to lure it into a regional war.

Pezeshkian, a reformist who was elected unexpectedly three months ago, was speaking at a wide-ranging and unprecedented two-and-half-hour press conference in which nearly half of the questions were from foreign media.

“What Israel has done in the region and what Israel tried with the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran was to drag us into a regional war,” he told reporters. “We have exercised restraint so far but we reserve the right to defend ourselves at a specific time and place with specific methods.”

It remains a matter of debate whether Pezeshkian, who has a frank, consensual style, has access to the real levers of power or the political will to transform Iran’s relations with the west. But his use of a large international platform and often unpretentious direct manner suggests he is a new and unpredictable element in Iranian politics.

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