KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (pic) has urged the United States and Iran to immediately halt further escalation and return to diplomacy amid renewed hostilities between the two countries.
The Prime Minister said the latest exchange of strikes, which has extended beyond the immediate parties and into other states in the region, risks drawing the wider Middle East into an even more destructive conflict.
He said the party with the greatest capacity to shape events bears a particular responsibility to exercise restraint and prevent further escalation.
“The sovereignty of other states cannot be cast aside. No military objective justifies exposing civilians to an expanding conflict,” he said in a Facebook post.
The Prime Minister also cautioned against economic measures that inflict hardship on civilians and impede diplomatic engagement.
Such actions, he said, risk exacerbating rather than resolving the crisis.
“I urge the United States and Iran to halt further escalation and return immediately to diplomacy and the understandings reached in June,” he said.
Anwar said the conflict could ultimately be resolved only through political and diplomatic means.
“The world must not be made to pay the price for a wider regional war,” he added.
