Iran says calling US-Israeli actions 'Iran conflict' is moral evasion

The spokesperson for Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Thursday night that refusing to call aggression by its name amounts to moral evasion rather than neutrality. In a post published on X, Baghaei framed the issue around how the actions in question are described, arguing that terminology carries moral weight.

"If we lack even the courage to identify the aggressor and name the aggression, how can we claim to have the moral courage to confront injustice, propose workable solutions, or contribute meaningfully to peace?" Baghaei said in the post. The statement was directed at the practice of referring to the hostilities as an "Iran conflict," a framing the spokesperson rejected.

Baghaei added that "peace cannot be built by appeasing aggressors, legitimizing aggression, condemning the victim, or sacrificing fundamental principles." The remarks set out Iran's position that the language used to describe the hostilities should identify an aggressor rather than treat the parties as equivalent.

The post did not specify particular incidents or name individual countries beyond the framing it criticized. It was published on Thursday night and carried by Mehr News Agency, which identified the subject as the US-Israeli aggression on Iran and listed Qatar among its topic keywords.

According to Mehr News, the spokesperson's comments were published as a post on X and focused on the moral and diplomatic implications of how the hostilities are labeled.