Iran Says No to Nuclear Talks With U.S. — For Now
Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told European Union foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas that Tehran isn't going to engage in nuclear talks with the U.S. for now, a person briefed on the call between the two officials on Saturday said.
Araghchi said there would be no talks tomorrow, referring to the expected sixth round of nuclear negotiations between Iranian and American officials in Oman on Sunday, the person said. The person added that Araghchi didn't appear to be closing the doors to talks in the future if the Israeli attacks end, with the Iranian foreign minister blaming the U.S. for the current situation. Kallas is also the head of the committee that oversees the 2015 nuclear accord under a U.N. mandate.
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The Hill
20 minutes ago
- The Hill
Israel and Iran trade strikes for a third day as hundreds reported dead
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Israel unleashed airstrikes across Iran for a third day Sunday and threatened even greater force as some Iranian missiles evaded Israeli air defenses to strike buildings in the heart of the country. Planned talks on Iran's nuclear program, which could provide an off-ramp, were canceled. Israel's strikes have killed at least 406 people in Iran and wounded another 654, according to a human rights group that has long tracked the country, Washington-based Human Rights Activists. Iran's government has not offered overall casualty figures. The region braced for a protracted conflict after Israel's surprise bombardment Friday of Iranian nuclear and military sites killed several top generals and nuclear scientists. Neither side showed any sign of backing down. Iran said Israel struck two oil refineries, raising the prospect of a broader assault on Iran's heavily sanctioned energy industry that could affect global markets. The Israeli military, in a social media post, warned Iranians to evacuate arms factories, signaling a further widening of the campaign. Israel, the sole though undeclared nuclear-armed state in the Middle East, said it launched the attack to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The two countries have been adversaries for decades. Explosions shook Iran's capital, Tehran, around noon and again around 3:30 p.m. Sirens went off across much of Israel around 4 p.m., warning of Iran's first daytime assault since fighting began. Israel said 14 people have been killed there since Friday and 390 wounded. Iran has fired over 270 missiles, 22 of which got through the country's sophisticated multi-tiered air defenses, according to Israeli figures. Israel's main international airport and airspace remained closed for a third day. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said if Israel's strikes on Iran stop, then 'our responses will also stop.' Iran's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, criticized the United States for supporting Israel and said if Israel's 'hostile actions' continue, 'the responses will be more decisive and severe,' state TV reported. U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. 'had nothing to do with the attack' and that Iran can avoid further destruction only by agreeing to a new nuclear deal. Photos shared by Iran's ISNA News Agency showed bloodied people being helped from the scene of Israeli strikes in downtown Tehran. Israeli strikes targeted Iran's Defense Ministry early Sunday after hitting air defenses, military bases and sites associated with its nuclear program. On Sunday night, Israel said it had begun striking dozens of surface-to-surface missile targets in western Iran. Israel also claimed it attacked an Iranian refueling aircraft in Mashhad in the northeast, calling it the farthest strike the military had yet carried out. Iran did not immediately acknowledge any attack. Video obtained and verified by The Associated Press showed smoke rising from the city. Iran's foreign minister said Israel targeted an oil refinery near Tehran and another in a province on the Persian Gulf. Semiofficial Iranian news agencies have reported that an Israeli drone strike caused a 'strong explosion' at an Iranian natural gas processing plant at the South Pars natural gas field. Human Rights Activists said its breakdown of the toll so far showed at least 197 civilians and 90 members of the military have been killed across Iran. At least 119 more deaths could not be identified. The group crosschecks local reports against a network of sources inside the country, where access for international media is more limited than in Israel. In a sign that Iran expects Israeli strikes to continue, state television reported that metro stations and mosques would be made available as bomb shelters beginning Sunday night. In Israel, at least six people, including a 10-year-old and a 9-year-old, were killed when a missile hit an apartment building in Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv. Daniel Hadad, a local police commander, said 180 people were wounded and seven were missing. Another four people, including a 13-year-old, were killed and 24 wounded when a missile struck a building in the Arab town of Tamra in northern Israel. A strike on the central city of Rehovot wounded 42. The Weizmann Institute of Science, an important center for military and other research in Rehovot, reported 'a number of hits to buildings on the campus.' It said no one was harmed. An oil refinery was damaged in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to the firm operating it, which said no one was wounded. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off urgent calls by world leaders to deescalate. In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he said regime change in Iran 'could certainly be the result' of the conflict, and he announced that Israel had killed the intelligence chief for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also claimed, without giving evidence, that Israeli intelligence indicated Iran intended to give nuclear weapons to Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Iran has always said its nuclear program was peaceful, and the U.S. and others have assessed that it has not pursued a weapon since 2003. But Iran has enriched ever larger stockpiles of uranium to near weapons-grade levels in recent years and was believed to have the capacity to develop multiple weapons within months if it chose to do so. The U.N.'s atomic watchdog issued a rare censure of Iran last week. The region is already on edge as Israel seeks to annihilate Hamas, an Iranian ally, in the Gaza Strip, where war still rages after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Iran's foreign minister on Saturday called the nuclear talks 'unjustifiable' after Israel's strikes. A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive nuclear talks, said Washington remained committed to them and hoped the Iranians would return to the table. In a social media post, Trump warned Iran that any retaliation directed against it would bring an American response 'at levels never seen before.' 'However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!' he wrote. In Iran, satellite photos analyzed by AP show extensive damage at Iran's main nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz. The images shot Saturday by Planet Labs PBC show multiple buildings damaged or destroyed. The structures hit include buildings identified by experts as supplying power to the facility. U.N. nuclear chief Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that the above-ground section of the Natanz facility was destroyed. The main centrifuge facility underground did not appear to be hit, but the loss of power could have damaged infrastructure there, he said. Israel also struck a nuclear research facility in Isfahan. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said four 'critical buildings' were damaged, including Isfahan's uranium-conversion facility. The IAEA said there was no sign of increased radiation at Natanz or Isfahan. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity Sunday in line with official procedures, said it would take 'many months, maybe more' to restore the two sites. ___ Melzer reported from Nahariya, Israel, and Goldenberg from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran; Sam Mednick and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Bloomberg
21 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Trump Blocked Israel From Killing Iran's Leader, Reuters Reports
President Donald Trump discouraged Israel from trying kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, after Israeli officials said they had an opportunity, Reuters reported, citing two US officials. Asked about the report, Israeli national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel's N12 News that the government doesn't ask permission from the US for targets and that Israel isn't looking to overthrow the regime.
Fox News
21 minutes ago
- Fox News
Netanyahu reveals Iran marked Trump as 'enemy number one' with assassination plot
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed in his first interview since Israel launched its blistering attacks on Iran that the country's Islamic regime had pinpointed President Donald Trump as a threat to its nuclear program and actively worked to assassinate him. "They want to kill him. He's enemy number one. He's a decisive leader. He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them basically a pathway to enrich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, padding it with billions and billions of dollars," the prime minister told Fox News' Bret Baier during a special Sunday edition of "Special Report." "He took up this fake agreement and basically tore it up. He killed Qasem Soleimani. He made it very clear, including now, 'You cannot have a nuclear weapon, which means you cannot enrich uranium.' He's been very forceful, so for them, he's enemy number one." Netanyahu revealed he was also a target of the regime after a missile was fired into the bedroom window of his home. He went on to call himself Trump's "junior partner" in threatening Iran's ability to weaponize nuclear arms. Netanyahu said his country was facing an "imminent threat" of nuclear destruction and was left with no choice but to act aggressively in the "12th hour." "We were facing an imminent threat, a dual existential threat," he said. "One, the threat of Iran rushing to weaponize their enriched uranium to make atomic bombs with a specific and declared intent to destroy us. Second, a rush to increase their ballistic missile arsenal to the capacity that they would have 3,600 weapons a year…. Within three years, 10,000 ballistic missiles, each one weighing a ton, coming in at mach 6, right into our cities, as you saw today… and then in 26 years, 20,000 [missiles]. No country can sustain that, and certainly not a country the size of Israel, so we had to act." Netanyahu said, by doing so, Israel is not only protecting itself but also protecting the world. Iran has since retaliated with a large-scale ballistic missile attack on Israeli cities, although many of the projectiles were thwarted. Netanyahu told Fox News he believes Israel's offensive measures have set back the Iranian nuclear program "quite a bit," sharing his belief that negotiations with the terrorism-sponsoring regime were clearly "going nowhere." He also said his country is prepared to do whatever is necessary to eliminate the nuclear and ballistic missile threat Iran poses to the world. Netanyahu has described the operation, coined as Operation Rising Lion, as "one of the greatest military operations in history." Addressing the Iranian people, he said they had been oppressed for 50 years by the same Islamic regime that has long threatened to destroy the State of Israel. An encore of Netanyahu's special interview with Bret Baier will also run at 5 PM/ET on Sunday.
