Putin says Middle East nearing all-out war at BRICS summit

The Middle East is on the brink of a full-scale war after a sharp rise in tension between Israel and Iran, Russian President Vladimir Putin told BRICS leaders on Thursday during a summit held in Kazan.

"The degree of confrontation between Israel and Iran has sharply increased. All this resembles a chain reaction and puts the entire Middle East on the brink of a full-scale war," Putin said as he sat next to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The BRICS summit, attended by more than 20 leaders, including Xi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan, has shown the depth of Russia's relations beyond the Western world.

Much discussion at the summit in the Russian city of Kazan was dedicated to the war in Ukraine and the violence in the Middle East, though there was no sign that anything specific would be done to end either conflict. Russia has diplomatic relations with Israel, but is also allied with Iran. Tehran has supplied Moscow with missile and armed drones for its war against Ukraine.

Xi, speaking after Putin, said that there should be a comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza, a halt to the spread of war in Lebanon and a return to the two-state solution under which states for both Israel and Palestine would be established.

'What is necessary to deter further aggression'

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has urged Israel not to escalate its war with Iran and its proxies in several public statements during his visit to the Middle East this week. He also raised the issue on Tuesday when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blinken addressed the issue on Thursday during a joint press conference with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Thani in Doha.

“With regard to Iran, we, of course, are concerned about the potential for broader conflict, particularly since Iran launched its second direct attack on Israel, using ballistic missiles just 23 days ago,” he said.

"The United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself, and we’ve been in close coordination with Israel on what is necessary to deter further aggression from Iran and to ensure that any response does not lead to an endless cycle of escalation,” he said.

“We’re also continuing to work with our partners in the region to make very clear to Iran that further attacks against Israel will have deeply negative consequences for Iran’s interests.  

“We’re very attentive to the fact that the risk of broader conflict is high, and that’s all the more reason why we’re determined and acting to try to make sure that we prevent that,” he said.

In an interview with Europe1 aired Thursday, Netanyahu said that “everyone recognizes our right to respond” to Iran’s attacks on Israel.

He spoke as Jerusalem continues to weigh its retaliatory response both to Iran’s direct ballistic missile attack against it at the start of October and the Iranian and Hezbollah attempted assassination of Netanyahu last week.

The United States has pushed in particular this week to advance a ceasefire to end the year-long IDF-Hezbollah war that would be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which set the ceasefire terms that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon war. That text calls for Hezbollah not to operate between the Israeli-Lebanese border and the Litani River.

US special envoy Amos Hochstein has been in Lebanon this week working on a ceasefire deal that would be based on that same resolution, noting that during the last 18 years, it has not been implemented. The IDF in the last months has sharply increased its military activity against Hezbollah in Lebanon, including entering southern Lebanon to push the terrorist group back to the Litani River.

In Qatar on Thursday, Blinken said, “As Israel conducts operations to remove the threat to Israel and its people along the border with Lebanon, we have been very clear that this cannot lead – should not lead – to a protracted campaign and that Israel must take the necessary steps to avoid civilian casualties and not endanger UN peacekeepers or the Lebanese Armed Forces.

“Right now, we’re working intensely to reach a diplomatic resolution, one that sees the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 and, as a result, allows civilians on both sides of the border to return to their homes and to be able to live there in peace and security," he said.

“We’re also committed to building up and supporting Lebanese efforts to build up their own institutions – free from the grip of Hezbollah – so that the people of Lebanon have more security, more opportunity, more prosperity.

Separately, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was in Beirut for talks on Wednesday and said the task was to find a viable diplomatic solution between Israel and Lebanon after Israel succeeded in weakening Hezbollah.

"The task now is to work with our partners in the US, Europe, and the Arab world to find a viable diplomatic solution that safeguards the legitimate security interests of both Israel and Lebanon," Baerbock said in a statement.

Reuters contributed to this report.