TEHRAN – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran has “never asked for a ceasefire” in the war with Israel and the United States.
In an interview with CBS News, the BBC’s US media partner, Araghchi also says Iran doesn’t “see any reason why we should talk with [the] Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us.”
US President Donald Trump had said on Saturday Iran wanted to make a deal, but that he felt the terms were “not good enough”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military says it is expanding the scope of its strikes to include more areas in western and central Iran, while Iran has also fired more missiles
“At this pace we will end up with a ruined Iran,” one man in the Iranian capital tells the BBC.
The Israel Defense Force (IDF) said it aims to degrade the regime’s “command and control capabilities”.
At the same time, it announced the Israeli Air Force completed a wave of strikes targeting the Iranian regime’s headquarters in Hamedan, western Iran, earlier on Sunday.
The IDF said it struck several key headquarters belonging to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps and the Basij Forces.
It says the strikes are part of “an ongoing effort focused on deepening the damage to the core operational systems and foundations of the Iranian regime”.
Meanwhile, the United States has branded Iranian claims that the US and Israel are behind drone attacks on Gulf states as a “lie”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi suggested that the two countries could be responsible for the attacks while blaming Iran, according to the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency.
Araghchi said the US’ Lucas drone is a “perfect match” for the Iranian Shahed, and that it is possible these drones are being used against Arab nations to “sabotage the relations of these countries with Iran”.
The Lucas drone, which stands for low-cost uncrewed combat attack system, was used for the first time in combat during the current war with Iran, and was described by the US Central Command (Centcom) chief, Admiral Brad Cooper, as a Shahed drone “made better” and fired “right back at Iran”.
Responding to these claims, Centcom says Iran has launched “thousands of drones AND missiles” at its neighbors.
“US attack drones are only targeting Iranian military capabilities to eliminate threats posed to the region,” it continues in a statement on X.
It is still very difficult to contact those inside Iran amid the internet outage imposed by the government at the start of the war, but tech-savvy residents have been using Starlink devices and sharing their connection with others.
“I was supposed to get married in these days. The flights have been cancelled, and the situation isn’t clear at all. My partner lives in Canada, he had a ticket to come to Tehran so we could have the ceremony. I’m paying a huge amount of money to be able to connect to the internet to talk to him right now,” a woman in her 20s in Tehran said to me. (BBC)
