Tehran, Oct 17 (IANS): Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Thursday dismissed a recent claim by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Tehran seeks to destabilise the West Asia region.

In response to Scholz's remarks on Wednesday condemning Iran's missile attacks against Israel in early October and calling it "risking setting the entire region on fire," Baghaei wrote on social media platform X that "Iran has no interest in playing with fire."

"Iran struggles to put up (with) the fire your lethal gifts (to Israel) have inflicted upon our region," he wrote, calling Scholz's warning "revealingly hypocritical."

"Those who are complicit in the crime and justify genocide and war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law, lack any moral high ground to preach others who are bearing the brunt," he added, Xinhua news agency reported.

In a separate post, Baghaei said the United States and Germany are the "biggest supplier of lethal weapons" to Israel and the main "apologists of Israeli crimes."

On October 1, Iran fired approximately 180 missiles at Israeli targets. Tehran described the strikes as retaliation for the assassinations of several leaders of the regional resistance groups and Israel's military actions against Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran had made a "grave mistake" and vowed retaliation.