Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, in his latest written message, has said that the Islamic republic does not want war with the United States and Israel, but would protect its rights as a nation, state television reported on Thursday.

“We did not seek war, and we do not want it,” he said in the message read out on state TV, coinciding with 40 days since his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was assassinated on February 28, the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

“But we will not renounce our legitimate rights under any circumstances, and in this respect, we consider the entire resistance front as a whole,” he added, in an apparent reference to Lebanon where Israel has been carrying out strikes that it says target Hezbollah.

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