Iran supreme leader’s adviser threatens: If Iran can’t have flights, no one in the region will have any

Tehran has issued a direct warning to countries in the region amid the tightening squeeze on Iranian civil aviation: if Iran is denied flights and airport services, its neighbours will have no flights to their own countries either.

The threat was made by Mohammad Mokhber, adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to a report by the Iranian news agency Nour News.

The statement came just hours after Iraq’s Najaf International Airport suspended all flights to and from Iran, effective from 02:00 on Friday morning, with no end date. A day earlier, the United Arab Emirates had also banned flights by Iranian airlines in line with US sanctions.

Iranian aviation has been under growing pressure for weeks: the US Treasury Secretary warned that all Iranian airlines would be shut down within two days, while Oman, Azerbaijan and Turkey have successively suspended flights by Iranian carriers, including Mahan Air and Iran Air.

Mokhber’s warning raises the risk of a new escalation in a region where the skies are closing day by day: earlier this week, Baghdad and Muscat closed their airports to Iranian flights, forcing Tehran to reroute flights to Najaf — which is now closed as well.

Source: Al Jazeera — https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2026/9/25/iran-war-live-tehran-wants-washington-to-re-enter-mou-before-us-midterms