Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi insisted in comments on Thursday his country had no interest in ceasing missile barrages against Israel, maintaining the Iranian military would “continue to pummel the criminals who target our people.”
Aragchi appeared to be referring to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), though Iran has exclusively targeted civilian population centers in Israel since the current conflict began, killing at least 25 at press time, all civilians. The foreign minister made his remarks shortly after Iran bombed the Soroka Medical Center, an Israeli hospital, on Thursday morning.
“We call on Israelis to heed our evacuation orders before strikes and to avoid proximity to military and intelligence sites,” Aragchi ordered in a social media message on Thursday, as reported by the regime-friendly outlet Tasnim News. “Our powerful Armed Forces will continue to pummel the criminals who target our people until they cease and pay for their criminal aggression against our nation.”
“It is the Israeli regime and not Iran that initiated all this bloodshed, and it is Israeli war criminals and not Iranians who are targeting hospitals and civilians,” he claimed, rejecting the proof of Iran’s bombing of an Israeli hospital. Araghchi claimed that the true target of the hospital bombing was an “Israeli Military Command, Control & Intelligence HQ” and an unspecified other “vital target.”
Iranian mourners and a banner featuring portraits of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) generals killed in Israeli attacks during a religious rally, called the 10km party, to condemn Israeli attacks on Iran, in Tehran, Iran, on June 14, 2025. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty)
The foreign minister’s insistence that Iran was not interested in ceasing its attacks preceded scheduled talks on Friday between Aragchi and his counterparts from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany – nations still remaining in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or failed nuclear deal.
“Germany, together with France and Britain are ready,” German Foreign Minister Wadephul said prior to the talks. “We’re offering Iran immediate negotiations about the nuclear programme, I hope [this offer] is accepted… This is also a key prerequisite for reaching a pacification of this conflict, that Iran presents no danger to the region, for the state of Israel or to Europe.”
Iranian officials have done little to inspire confidence in their will to peace in public. In addition to Aragchi’s comments, the “supreme leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared in a speech on Wednesday that his nation would reject peace if it was “imposed” from abroad.
“The Iranian nation will firmly stand against an imposed war, just as it will resolutely resist an imposed peace,” Khamenei declared. “This is a nation that will never surrender to any form of imposition.”
“Those with wisdom, who truly understand Iran, its people, and its long history, never speak to this nation with the language of threats. Iran will not yield,” he asserted.
The current conflict between Israel and Iran erupted after Israel launched a military operation on June 13 targeting some of Iran’s most powerful military leaders, titled “Rising Lion.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained in a national address that the Iranian Islamist regime, which regularly threatens genocide against the Israeli people, had enriched enough uranium to manufacture multiple nuclear weapons, a threat his government deemed unacceptable. Iran lost some of its top armed forces leaders in the first round of Israeli attacks last week, most prominently the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Hossein Salami.
The Iranian regime has responded to the Israeli operation by bombing Israel’s largest cities and rejecting all calls to limit its uranium enrichment. Shortly before Operation Rising Lion began, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) passed a resolution condemning Iran for its illicit nuclear development activities. The United States had been engaged in multiple rounds of talks with Iran in pursuit of an agreement to limit threatening nuclear activities, but Iranian officials – led by Aragchi – insisted that they would accept no limits on enrichment. Tehran announced the building of a new uranium enrichment facility in response to the IAEA rebuke, shortly before the IDF began its attack.
No news has yet surfaced at press time from Aragchi’s scheduled talks with European diplomats. In Washington, President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would allow time for diplomacy to resolve the conflict before approving any American military involvement against Tehran.
“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” President Trump said in a statement read to reporters by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
American and Iranian officials were scheduled to meet for a sixth round of nuclear talks the weekend after the launch of the Israeli military operation, but those talks were canceled following the strikes. Trump lamented the failure of those talks, as a result of the belligerence of Iranian negotiators, in the immediate aftermath of the first Israeli strikes.
“I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to ‘just do it,’ but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn’t get it done,” Trump wrote in a post on his website Truth Social. “Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!”
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