At a news conference on Thursday, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said Islamabad still reserved the right to respond. "We're not looking at a military option," Qureshi said, but added: "Don't we reserve a right to respond in case of any aggression?"

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"The enemy knows that any new war endangers the survival of the Zionist regime, and will be followed by its irreversible fall," the commander said, referring to Israel while speaking at a military meeting in Kermanshah province, western Iran on Thursday, his remarks quoted by IRNA.

"The Zionists and some of their allies do not show a desire for war today because they know that if it occurred, it would move into their lands," Salami added. According to the commander, the "enemy knows" that a resisting force had been created "in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and elsewhere" which could threaten them in the event of a conflict.

Referring to the US-UK coalition 'maritime security coalition forming in the Middle East as a "coalition of demons," Salami suggested that Iran was already involved in a war with the great powers of the West, facing "maximum political and economic pressures, psychological operations, cultural assaults, economic seizures, and even security threats and military intimidation."

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"The region should not be an area for foreigners," Hatami said, speaking in a conference call with his counterparts from Qatar, Kuwait and Oman on Thursday.

"There is no doubt that the countries of the Persian Gulf region should ensure security in the region. The Islamic Republic of Iran is also an important country for maintaining stability in the Gulf," the minister said.

Commenting on Operation Sentinel, the US-proposed effort to deploy a military coalition to ensure freedom of navigation through the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, Hatami stressed that such a coalition would only have the opposite effect.

"The military coalition that America is seeking to form with the excuse of 'securing maritime transport' will only increase insecurity in the region," the defence minister stressed, adding that Washington itself, not Tehran, was the primary source of tensions in the region.

As far as media reports of the potential involvement of Israel in the US-led coalition are concerned, Hatami warned that Israeli participation in the coalition would be "highly provocative, and could have disastrous consequences for the region." The senior officer did not clarify what these 'consequences' might be.

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