Iranian foreign minister denies ceasefire with Israel as army chief warns regime is 'ready for operations'

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency that there is no ceasefire between Iran and Israel following the 12-day war in June.

“The aggression has stopped, and in turn our right to defend has stopped,” Araghchi stated. “That's it. There is no ceasefire agreement; there is nothing else. They stopped the aggression without any conditions, and we stopped the defense. When there is no aggression, naturally, there is no reason to defend ourselves. So since they asked for the attacks to stop without any conditions, we accepted.”

On June 24, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, despite the fact that Tehran continued its missile attacks, killing at least five Israelis. 

Looking ahead, Araghchi warned that the war between Iran and Israel could restart. “Everything can resume. They can resume, we can resume. There is no official ceasefire, and everything is possible, and it is not just Iran that should be worried and concerned,” he argued. 

Iran’s Army Commander-in-Chief Amir Hatami echoed similar sentiments, threatening that the regime is ready to resume attacks against Israel. 

"A 1% threat must be perceived as a 100% threat. We should not underestimate the enemy and consider its threats as over," Hatami stated, according to the state-controlled Iranian news agency (IRNA), warning that the ayatollah regime "remains standing and ready for operations."

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Hatami to lead the country’s conventional military after Israel eliminated his predecessor, Maj.-Gen. Mohammad Bagheri and the additional top 20 Iranian military leaders during Operation Rising Lion. On June 22, Trump ordered the U.S. military to strike Iran’s main nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. 

The Iranian regime, which refers to the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan,” openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. 

Prior to the war in June, the U.S. and Iran were engaged in indirect negotiations over Tehran’s covert nuclear military program. In a recent interview, the Iranian foreign minister hinted that Iran would likely demand financial compensation as a precondition for restarting talks with the Trump administration.

“Financial compensation for what has been imposed on us, and of course, as you know, a significant number of our people have been martyred in these attacks. So we cannot simply return to negotiations and pretend that everything is normal. The situation is no longer the same,” Araghchi said. 

“They have attacked us. Our facilities have been severely damaged. So we cannot enter negotiations and pretend that nothing has happened. This is obvious. So this time the negotiations will be much more difficult, and they must understand that by attacking our nuclear facilities, they have not made the path of negotiations easier, but rather more complicated and difficult,” he added.

However, following the severe destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump does not appear to be in a hurry to restart talks with the regime. Just a few days after the Iran-Israel war officially ended, Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform that he wasn’t “offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA’ (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities."

Araghchi also appeared to dismiss nuclear talks with the European powers Germany, France and the United Kingdom. 

“Why should we continue negotiations with them? So there is only one reason to negotiate with the Europeans, and that is the trigger mechanism (which would 'snap back' the sanctions). Because they cannot lift or terminate the sanctions, they cannot stop the aggression. They cannot do anything. The only leverage they think they have is the possibility of activating the trigger mechanism, and if they do that, everything is over and they will no longer play any role in the future of the Iranian nuclear negotiations,” the Iranian leader said.