TEHRAN, June 29: Iran’s foreign minister said on Sunday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack the Islamic Republic over its nuclear programme.

“They know full well what the consequences of such an act would be,” Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told reporters. He was speaking a day after the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying Iran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part.

Speculation about a possible attack on Iran has risen since a US newspaper reported this month that Israel had practiced such a strike.

Mottaki said Israel was dealing with the consequences of its 2006 war with Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon and was suffering a “crisis of deepening illegitimacy” in the Middle East region.

“That’s why we do not see the Zionist regime in a situation in which they would want to engage in such an adventurism,” he said when asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack.

—Reuters