Pakistan's Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar (2L) is seen in a meeting with his counterparts Saudi Arabia's Faisal bin Farhan (L), Turkey's Hakan Fidan (2R) and Egypt's Badr Abdelatty in Islamabad on Sunday — AFP ISLAMABAD/DUBAI, Mar 29 (Reuters/AP/AFP): Iran said it was ready to respond to a U.S. ground attack, accusing Washington on Sunday of preparing a land assault even as it sought negotiations and as regional powers held talks in Pakistan to try to end the fighting.
The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt met in Islamabad and discussed ways to halt the month-long U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which has killed thousands of people and caused the biggest-ever disruption to global energy supplies.
Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf accused the U.S. of sending messages about possible negotiations while secretly planning to send in its ground forces, adding that Iran was ready to respond if U.S. troops deployed.
"As long as the Americans seek Iran's surrender, our response is that we will never accept humiliation," he said in a message to the nation.
The war, launched on February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, has spread across the Middle East, with Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis launching on Saturday their first attacks on Israel since the start of the conflict.
Meanwhile, US Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday criticized the ongoing war in Iran as a "violation of international law" while addressing the flagship "No Kings" rally in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Speaking to thousands of protesters, Sanders pledged to oppose President Donald Trump's request for an additional $200 billion in military spending for the US-Israeli war in Iran, reports Al Jazeera.
"Let us be honest. The American people were lied to about the war in Vietnam, we were lied to about the war in Iraq, and we are being lied to today about the war in Iran," Sanders said.
The progressive Democrat reminded the crowd that Trump had campaigned on a promise to end "forever wars." "One sovereign nation cannot simply go about attacking another sovereign nation for any reason it chooses," he added.
The remarks come amid the US midterm election season, where Trump's Republican Party faces voter scrutiny over foreign policy and military engagement.
Hundreds of Israelis protest
against war, clash with cops
Hundreds of Israeli protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and some other cities on Saturday to protest the war in the Middle East, in unauthorised demonstrations that security forces sought to disperse.
Weekly protests against the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran on February 28 have been taking place in Tel Aviv and other major cities, initially drawing only a few dozen participants.
Numbers now appear to be rising, though far from the tens of thousands who filled Tel Aviv's streets last year to protest the war in Gaza.
A number of former parliamentarians and prominent left?wing organisations joined Saturday's rallies, including Standing Together, Peace Now and Women Wage Peace.
AFP footage showed law enforcement officers removing demonstrators in Tel Aviv. Similar scenes were filmed by activists in the northern city of Haifa.
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