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Iran’s top diplomat said Tehran had told the US through back channels that it did not want the Israel-Hamas war to spread further, but it also warned Washington that regional conflict could be unavoidable if Israeli attacks on Gaza continued.

“Over the past 40 days, messages have been exchanged between Iran and the US, via the US interests section at the Swiss embassy in Tehran,” foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told the Financial Times, while ruling out the possibility of direct talks between the two foes.

“In response to the US,” he added, “we said that Iran does not want the war to spread, but due to the approach adopted by the US and Israel in the region, if the crimes against the people of Gaza and the West Bank are not stopped, any possibility could be considered, and a wider conflict could prove inevitable.”

Iran, the main supporter of anti-Israel Islamist militants in the region, has said it was not informed in advance of Hamas’s devastating attack on Israel on October 7 — a position that US officials have confirmed.