Financial Times: USA and The European Union is holding urgent talks with Iran

Diplomats from the United States and the European Union are holding urgent talks on the situation in the Middle East in an attempt to prevent a full-scale war in the region after strikes on Hezbollah and Hamas leaders, the Financial Times reports.

On July 30, Israel struck Beirut, during which one of the Hezbollah commanders, Fuad Mohsen Shukr, was killed. According to the IDF, he was the right-hand man of the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah and was responsible for the strike on the city of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which killed at least 12 people. On the night of July 31, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran as a result of a direct missile hit. The Palestinian group and Iran blamed Israel for his death.

According to the FT, EU Deputy Foreign Policy Chief Enrique Mora held talks with Iranian officials in Tehran, and Brett McGurk, coordinator of the White House National Security Council for the Middle East, discussed the situation in Saudi Arabia. The official representative of the EU Foreign Policy Service, Peter Stano, said that Mora was trying to "convey the EU's position on all issues of concern related to Iran."

In addition, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with his counterparts in Jordan and Qatar, and Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin spoke with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant.

The West is making diplomatic efforts amid growing concerns about the expansion of the conflict. According to the FT interlocutors, the negotiators tried to convince Iran either not to respond to Israel or to take "symbolic actions."

"Everyone has been putting pressure on me since last night. Tehran, so that it does not react and restrains itself," said one of the diplomats.

US administration spokesman John Kirby told reporters on July 31 that "there are no signs that escalation is imminent." He stressed that the United States did not know in advance about Israel's plans to strike Tehran with the aim of killing Haniyeh. The same was said in the US State Department, however, the Iranian Foreign Ministry considers Washington responsible for what happened. According to Iran's permanent Representative to the UN, Amir Said Iravani, "this act would not have been committed without permission, without US intelligence support."

According to The New York Times, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered a strike on Israel. Commenting on Haniyeh's death, he called it Tehran's duty "to avenge the blood of the one who suffered martyrdom on the territory of the Islamic Republic," and threatened Israel with "severe punishment."