Switch off the editor’s digest free of charge
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Israel had tried to murder him between the two countries in the 12-day war last month.
Pezeshkian made the claim in a video interview with the American conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, in which he also signaled that Iran continues to be open to renewed diplomacy with the United States through the nuclear program of the Islamic Republic.
When Pezeshkian was asked by Carlson whether Israel had tried to kill him, he replied: “You tried, yes, and you acted accordingly, but you failed.”
He said that the attempt was taken in a meeting in which “the ways to progress are discussed” and suggested that the Israeli armed forces were folded off by “intelligence by spies”.
“They tried to bomb the area in which we held this meeting,” he said, without offering any details about timing or how close the attack came. Pezeshkian’s comments were translated into English by an interpreter.
Israel started his Offensive in Iran With devastating bombing, in which dozens of top military commanders and nuclear scientists killed. The United States also started an attack on the nuclear institutions of Iran during the war, which ended with an armistice last month.
During the conflict, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he could consider murdering the Supreme Guide of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, US President Donald Trump claimed that he had intervened to prevent such an action.
Khamenei, whose whereabouts were unclear during the fights, took part in a religious ceremony last weekend His first public appearance Since the war started. His helpers claim that he continued to steer the war efforts and made important strategic decisions throughout the conflict.
During the interview with Carlson, Pezeshkian swored to give Iran “life and blood”.
Pezeshkian, who did not accuse Washington, to be involved in the alleged attempt at assassination, did not rule out any new negotiations with the United States, but expressed skepticism about her prospects.
Before the outbreak of war, Tehran had involved five rounds of indirect negotiations with Washington about the future of his nuclear program. A sixth round should begin shortly after Israel’s attack in Oman.
“There is no problem to restart the talks with the USA,” said Pezeshkian to Carlson, but added: “How will we trust the USA again?
While the Israeli and US strikes made serious strokes to the Iranian military and regime, there were contradictory reports about how far they have brought Tehran’s nuclear program back.
While Trump claimed that the program – the Washington warns, could be armed – was “distributed”, The head of the United Nations nuclear guard said last month that Iran could restart the uranium enrichment “in a few months”.
Iran insists that its nuclear program serves for peaceful purposes.
Pezeshkian criticized strong criticism of what he described as Israeli war crimes during the conflict. He said that the Israeli armed forces had targeted military commanders while they were free of work and killed nuclear scientists together with their families and other civilians.
“Because they wanted to kill a person, they had to destroy and destroy an entire building and, as a result, killed many people,” he said.
Israeli officials said that the Iranian rockets had also hit residential buildings in Israel. The IDF did not immediately answer a request for comment.
