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Iranian diplomat says missile strike was not intended to kill Americans

“You know, we said before we took our military action that we would choose the timing and the place,” Majid Takht Ravanchi, the Iranian U.N. envoy, told CNN in an interview that aired Friday. “And we chose the place where the attack against Soleimani was initiated. And we do not consider, you know, [a] high number of casualties as an instrumental element in our calculations.”

Pressed as to whether Tehran specifically sought to not kill Americans in the strike, Ravanchi said he is “not a military man” and “cannot tell you exactly what was going on.”

“But what I can tell you is that the target was chosen in order to show that we are capable of hitting the target where the plan to kill Soleimani was organized,” the ambassador continued, adding: “As I said, we are not interested in — we are not looking after killing Americans within this operation.”

Trump has sought to de-escalate the heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran in the aftermath of the violence, declaring in a televised address Wednesday that Iran “appears to be standing down” and that the U.S. “is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.”

But Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Wednesday that while the U.S. was “slapped” in the missile strike, “such military actions are not enough.” A senior commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also threatened Thursday that his nation would extract “harsher revenge soon” against the U.S.

Source: politico.com
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