TEHRAN, Iran
Iran said Tuesday that the ongoing war with the United States and Israel will end “when the aggression stops.”
Addressing reporters at a primary school hit in a US-Israeli strike in Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the war “was not initiated by Iran, whose choice was diplomacy.”
The US and Israel launched a large-scale offensive on Iran on Saturday, killing nearly 800 people, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and top military officials, according to Iranian figures.
The attack came days after the US and Iran held a third round of indirect nuclear negotiations under Omani mediation.
Baghaei said many people inside Iran had opposed negotiations with the US, given the past experience when Israel and the US attacked the country last June.
The spokesman called on the UN Security Council and the international community to intervene “before the war expands to other places.”
Iran has “vowed to fight with all our strength in this battle,” he said, adding that the attention is primarily focused on defending the country from attacks.
“We have had many contradictory and deceptive messages over the past year and a half. Now is the time for war and defending the homeland. Anything that diverts our attention must be set aside,” he said.
Baghaei noted that Iran has repeatedly warned about the “inaction and indifference” of the international community toward violations of law.
“The world saw genocide and took no action; it witnessed aggression against neighbouring countries and did not respond. We have repeatedly cried out and warned that if the world – especially countries that claim to uphold the rule of law and have played a fundamental role in shaping the international normative system and the UN Charter – does not act, the fire of lawlessness and rebellion will engulf all countries,” he said.
Iran has so far launched 15 waves of missile and drone strikes at Israel and US assets in the region, including Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Many of these countries have condemned the Iranian attacks as unjustified.