TEHRAN
Iran's President-elect Hassan Rowhani dismissed an Israeli statement as "baseless" that the Jewish state was ready to engage Iran militarily.
Rowhani responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recent warning over Iran's nuclear program, where he claimed Iran was close to making a nuclear weapon and said Israel would not wait for the US to take military action.
"Some countries keep saying all options are on the table, and a wretched state in the region threatens us every day," Rowhani told Iran’s official news agency IRNA, in apparent references to the United States and Israel. "We just laugh at them. Who is the Zionist regime to threaten us?"
Rowhani believes it is Iran's eight-year long resistance against Iraqi invasion during the first Persian Gulf War over twenty years ago that deters possible military moves against the Islamic state.
"They are aware they will not be able to fulfil their threats. Because they know full well that if they make any such attempts, the Iranian people would resist them more strongly and bravely than ever before," he said.
"That's why Israel can't use military force against Iran."
Netanyahu said on Sunday Iran was "getting closer and closer to the bomb, and they have to be told in no uncertain terms that will not be allowed to happen."
The Israeli premier had earlier called Rowhani "a wolf in sheep's clothing", describing his strategy as "smile and build a bomb."
