TEHRAN, Iran: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday warned of a “more devastating” retaliation should Israel’s nine-day bombing campaign continue, saying the Islamic republic would not abandon its peaceful nuclear programme “under any circumstances”.
Israel said on Saturday it had killed three more Iranian commanders in its unprecedented offensive, while Foreign Minister Gideon Saar claimed the campaign had delayed Tehran’s alleged progress towards a nuclear weapon by two years.
“We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,” Saar told the German newspaper Bild, asserting Israel would keep up its onslaught.
Israel and Iran have traded wave after wave of devastating strikes since Israel launched its aerial campaign on June 13.
Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, and on Saturday Pezeshkian said its right to pursue a civilian nuclear programme “cannot be taken away… by threats or war”.
In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said Iran was “ready to discuss and cooperate to build confidence in the field of peaceful nuclear activities”.
“However, we do not agree to reduce nuclear activities to zero under any circumstances,” he added, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency.
Referring to the Israeli attacks, he said: “Our response to the continued aggression of the Zionist regime will be more devastating.”
Israel’s military earlier said that a strike in Qom, south of Tehran, killed Saeed Izadi, a top Revolutionary Guards official in charge of coordination with Palestinian group Hamas. Two other commanders were killed overnight, it added.
Israel said it had also attacked Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site for a second time, with the UN nuclear watchdog later reporting that a centrifuge manufacturing workshop had been hit.
US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Tehran had a “maximum” of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes as Washington weighed whether to join Israel’s campaign.
‘Not prepared to negotiate’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Istanbul on Saturday for a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss Israeli attacks.
Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume nuclear talks with the United States that had been derailed by the war.
But Araghchi told NBC News that “we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the Americans) anymore, as long as the aggression continues”.
Trump, dismissive of European diplomatic efforts, said he was unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.
“If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,” he said of Israel’s campaign.
Yemen’s Houthis on Saturday threatened to resume their attacks on US vessels in the Red Sea if Washington joined the war, despite a recent ceasefire agreement.
Hundreds killed
Iran’s health ministry on Saturday gave a toll of more than 400 people killed and 3,056 in the Israeli strikes.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes have killed at least 25 people in Israel, according to official figures cited by AFP.
Overnight, Iran said it targeted central Israel with drones and missiles. Israeli rescuers said there were no casualties after an Iranian drone struck a building.
Israel’s National Public Diplomacy Directorate said more than 450 missiles had been fired at the country so far, along with about 400 drones. – Agencies
