Washington / Tehran:
The world waited for Iran’s response on Sunday after President Donald Trump announced that the United States had “erased” the main nuclear sites in Tehran, joining Israel in the largest Western military action against the country since its 1979 revolution.
Tehran has so far not followed his threats of reprisals against the United States – either by targeting the American bases, or trying to stifle world oil supplies – but that may not hold. Speaking in Istanbul, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araqchi said that his country would consider all possible answers.
With visible space damage after 30,000-pounds’ American bunker bombs crushed on the mountain above the Iranian Ford-Ford nuclear site, Tehran has promised to defend himself at all costs. He pulled another volley of missiles in Israel who injured dozens of people and flattened buildings from Tel Aviv.
An opinion from the American Department of Internal Security warned against an “increased threat environment in the United States”. The US State Department ordered employee family members to leave Lebanon and advised citizens elsewhere in the region to keep a low profile or restrict travel.
“There would be no return to diplomacy before having retaliated, said Araghchi.” The United States has shown that it had no respect for international law. They only understand the language of threat and force, “he added. Later, Araghchi arrived in Moscow to consult President Vladimir Putin, Iran said news.
Separately, in an article on X, Araghchi said that Israel had derailed the nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington with his first strikes on June 13, while the American strikes did the same for negotiations with the European powers held this week.
Addressing European calls for Iran to return to negotiations, he asked: “How can Iran come back to something he never left?” Later at a press conference in Istanbul, he said that the United States and Israel had crossed a “large red line” by attacking Iranian nuclear sites.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to the supreme Iranian chief of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on X that the initiative was “now with the side that plays intelligently, avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!” He said, a few hours after Trump announced strikes in a television address.
Earlier, Trump said the United States had led a “very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran”, referring to Isfahan, Natanz and the installation of underground uranium in Fordow. “A complete payload of bombs has been abandoned on the main site,” he said in an article on his social platform Truth.
Iranian media also said that Ford, Isfahan and Natanz nuclear sites were affected. The President of the US CHIEFS in the United States, Dan Caine, said that seven B-2 stealth bombers stole from continental America in Iran, with multiple air refusants, to lead the attack.
“Iran fighters have not stolen, and it seems that the surface systems of the surface of Iran with missiles have not seen us throughout the mission. We have kept the element of surprise,” he said. Trump said Iran “should now agree to end this war,” insisting that Iran should have a nuclear weapon.
Trump described strikes as “spectacular military success” and boasted that Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities had been “completely and completely erased”. However, his own civil servants gave more nuanced assessments.
With the exception of satellite photographs seeming to show craters on the mountain above the Iranian underground factory in Fordow, there was no public accounting of damage. The United Nations nuclear custody said that no increase in out -of -site radiation levels had been reported after the American strikes.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told CNN that it was not yet possible to assess the damage caused underground. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that most of Fordow’s highly enriched uranium had been moved elsewhere before the attack. IAEA also said that tunnel entries from the Isfahan site struck by US Strike.
Trump immediately called on Iran to give up reprisals, saying that the government “must now make peace (and) if they do not do so, future attacks would be much greater and much easier,” he said. His vice-president, JD Vance, said that Washington was not at war with Iran but with his nuclear program.
During a pentagon briefing, defense secretary Pete Hegseth told journalists that the president had authorized precision operation to neutralize the threats posed by the Iranian nuclear program. “This mission was not and was not a matter of regime change,” said Hegseth.
In a step towards what is widely considered to be the most effective threat of Iran to hurt the West, its Parliament approved a decision to close the Hormuz Strait. Almost a quarter of world oil expeditions pass through the narrow waters that Iran shares with Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Iran’s Press TV said that closing the Strait would require the approval of the Supreme National Security Council. Security experts have long warned that Iran weakened could also find other unconventional ways to retaliate, such as attacks or cyber attacks.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo”, warned Iran against reprisals for American strikes, saying that such an action would be “the worst error they have ever made”.
Rubio declared the CBS Talk show separately “Face The Nation” that the United States had “other targets that we can reach, but we have achieved our goal”. “There is currently no military operation planned against Iran,” he added later, “unless they spoil.”
The United Nations Security Council (USC) was to meet later on Sunday, diplomats said at the request of Iran, which urged the organization of 15 members “to attack this flagrant and illegal act of (we) aggressive, to condemn it in the strongest possible terms”.
At CNUSC, Pakistan, China and Russia have proposed that the 15-member body adopts a resolution, calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East. However, he was not immediately clear when he could be put to a vote.
The three countries broadcast the draft text, said diplomats and asked members to share their comments by Monday. The United States is likely to oppose the draft resolution, seen by Reuters, which condemns attacks against sites and nuclear installations of Iran. The text does not name the United States or Israel.
Iranian authorities have said that more than 400 people had been killed since the start of Israel’s attacks, mainly civilians. Iran has sent missiles to Israel, killing at least 24 people in the last nine days, the first time that its projectiles have penetrated the defenses of Israel in large numbers.
The elite revolution guards said on Sunday that they had drawn 40 missiles, from which Kheibarshekan ballistic missiles in several Warheads in Israel in the last stolen. Air raid sirens sounded in most of Israel on Sunday, sending millions of people to safe rooms.
The Iran’s armed forces said they had targeted several sites in Israel, including Ben Gurion airport, after American attacks. The targets also included an installation of “organic research”, logistics bases and various layers of command and control centers, he said.
The IRNA news agency said that 40 missiles had been fired in the “20th wave” of Iran from strikes. At least 23 people were injured and the police said that at least three impacts had been reported. “The houses here were very, very bad,” said the mayor of Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai.
The Israeli army said it launched its own strike waves in western Iran and Qom, south of Tehran. He later said that his “jets struck dozens of military objectives across Iran”, including a long -range missile site in Yazd in the center of the country for the first time.
Irna reported that four members of the revolutionary had been killed in strikes on a military base in the north of the city. The Iranian newspaper of Shargh reported that a “massive explosion had been heard” on Sunday in Bushehr province, which shelters the Iranian nuclear power plant only.
