Iranian Diplomat: Doha talks just aimed at buying time to delay Iran’s response

The Doha talks on sealing a ceasefire in Gaza were fruitless and were just aimed at delaying Iran’s response to the Israeli regime’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, an Iranian diplomat says.

“They are buying time to delay Iran’s legitimate response to the Israeli regime’s clear aggression in violating the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Mohammad Soltanifar, the head of the Office for the Protection of the Interests of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Cairo.

He said that the Doha negotiations, which one of the leaders of Hamas called a “waste of time”, did not yield results as could be predicted.

Ismail Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were martyred after their residence was targeted in Tehran on July 31, according to a statement released by the IRGC.

Issuing a statement, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said that the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh was “designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America.”

Reacting to the Israeli act of terror, high-ranking Iranian officials vowed to give a proper response to the Zionist regime, with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei saying, that by assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, the Israeli regime has prepared the ground for harsh punishment for itself.

On Saturday, the political adviser to the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani took to X social media platform, formerly Twitter, to write that preparations have been made to severely punish a regime that only understands the language of force.

The sole goal of the Israeli regime in killing the worshipers of the Al-Tabin school in Gaza and assassinating the martyr Ismail Haniyeh in Iran is to seek war and make the ceasefire negotiations fail, Shamkhani wrote.

Preparations for severe punishment of the Israeli regime have been made following the legal, diplomatic, and media processes, he added.