While holding a press conference here in Tehran on Tuesday on the occasion of national Journalist Day, Larijani partly touched upon regional and international developments, including tensions in the Persian Gulf.

“It may be the case that some regional countries and the Zionist regime have devised such plans [attacks] against Iran but they know well that if they inflict any minor damage to Iran, they will receive our firm response as all US bases in the region will get stuck. And if they have a little bit of rationale, they will not enter a war with Iran,” Larijani said.

In the first place, US and its allies are after increasing economic pressure on Iranian people to rise their dissatisfaction at the government, he said, adding that enemies have failed in this plot so far and so they are trying to hamper the country’s economic growth.

“The American nation is get stuck with a corrupt extremist group which often suffer delusions,” the Iranian top lawmaker added.

Foreign Minister Zarif was sanctioned by Washington since he played a major role in revealing US’s wrong path in foreign policy.

Tensions in the region erupted after US implemented a series of hostile policies on Iran, namely the withdrawal from the nuclear deal, re-imposition of economic sanctions, deploying forces in the region, and designating IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization among others. Tehran says it doesn’t look for war but also stresses that it will strongly defend against any possible threats.

The situation became more complicated when UK Royal Forces seized a tanker laden with Iranian oil in Gibraltar, claiming that the shipment was headed to Syria which is under EU sanctions. Iran strongly condemned the illegal seizure, noting that the tanker was not headed to Syria and that Iran is not an EU member to be subject to such embargos. In the last string of events some two weeks later, a UK-flagged oil tanker crossing the Strait of Hormuz turned off its transponder and was moving in the wrong direction after colliding with an Iranian vessel and ignoring warnings of Iranian forces. The ship was eventually seized by IRGC due to failure to abide by international regulations.

After Iran seized the UK-flagged oil tanker, US, in another escalatory measure, proposed to establish a coalition in the Persian Gulf claiming it to be aimed at securing international waters but is believed to be a coalition against Iran.