ISTANBUL
Iran’s supreme leader accused US President Donald Trump of exaggerating the success of recent American military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, saying they achieved no significant results.
“The American president exaggerated events in unusual ways, and it turned out that he needed this exaggeration,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Sunday in a statement posted on his official X account.
“Anyone who heard those words understood that beneath their surface, another truth existed. They couldn’t do anything and exaggerated to cover up and conceal the truth,” he added.
Earlier, Trump said in an interview with Fox News that “we went in. We destroyed their nuclear capability, and we stopped. It was a beautiful thing. And they couldn’t have gone on much further…That was a very intense 12 days -- very, very intense.”
A conflict between Israel and Iran erupted on June 13, when Israel launched airstrikes on Iranian military, nuclear and civilian sites, killing at least 606 people and injuring 5,332, according to Iran’s Health Ministry.
The US bombed Iran’s Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities in an escalation of the conflict.
Tehran launched retaliatory missile and drone strikes on Israel, killing at least 29 people and wounding more than 3,400, according to figures released by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The conflict came to a halt under a US-sponsored ceasefire that took effect on June 24.