Israel/Iran conflict

New Zealand has stopped short of saying it fully supports the strikes by Israel and the United States - rather opting to say it acknowledges the reason action was taken, in light of Iran’s defiance of the will and expectations of the international community regarding its human rights abuses against its own people, its nuclear programme, and destabilising actions in the Middle East region.

“The legitimacy of a government rests on the support of its people. The Iranian regime has long since lost that support.

"In this context, we acknowledge that the actions taken overnight by the US and Israel were designed to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security," a statement from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters read.

On the other hand New Zealand reached for strong condemnation of Iran’s retaliation.

“We condemn in the strongest terms Iran’s indiscriminate retaliatory attacks on Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. We cannot risk further regional escalation, and civilian life must be protected.”   

The statement called for negotiations to resume toward a "negotiated solution that returns Iran to the community of nations.”

“We join the international community in hoping this crisis ends as quickly as possible.”

Protests broke out in late December over the country’s economic conditions and have resulted in violent bloodshed with the regime reportedly killing tens of thousands of its own citizens.

New Zealand had been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the Iranian regime and since 2022 has taken a number of diplomatic actions to express that.

Just this week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced New Zealand was placing travel bans on members of the Iranian regime who were involved in the violent suppression of protests.

“It’s been horrifying to witness the brutal killing of thousands of protestors in Iran,” he said, adding that the rights to peaceful protest and freedom of expression had been “ruthlessly violated”.

“Today’s actions send a clear message that those who act with callous disregard for human life are not welcome here,” he said on Wednesday.

Along with publicly condemning human rights abuses - New Zealand has raised serious concern about Iran’s repression of its own people, its nuclear and ballistic missile programme, it’s support of Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and more generally its destabilising actions in the Middle East and beyond.

Sanctions have included the travel ban, suspending bilateral engagement and trade sanctions - which in total MFAT records as a “strong stance on Iran’s behaviour”.

As tensions grew over the past week and the United States moved toward a strike on Iran, Peters warned a war would be disastrous.

“If it should come to war that would be a disaster, but sadly that is highly potential now.”
 
Canada and Australia have both used slightly stronger language with their Prime Ministers issuing near identical statements saying they “support” the US actions.

 “Canada supports the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent its regime from further threatening international peace and security,” Canadian PM Mark Carney. 

"We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security," Australian PM Anthony Albanese said.
 
- Reporting by Jenna Lynch