UK's Galloway receives 'Ismail Haniyeh award' at Tehran festival

Araghchi is currently in Pakistan, where he met with his counterpart Ishaq Dar. He is also scheduled to hold talks with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Last month, five armed militants attacked tourists in the Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, killing 26 civilians, including 25 Indian tourists and one local Muslim pony ride operator.

In the aftermath, India accused Pakistan of supporting cross-border terrorism, an allegation Pakistan denied.

Iran offered to mediate between India and Pakistan, though New Delhi has rejected any third-party mediation, according to The Times of India, citing government sources.

The report said that Araghchi’s visit on Thursday was organized before the attack in Kashmir and is focused on co-chairing the Iran-India Joint Commission meeting alongside Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

Discussions are expected to center on trade, energy, and infrastructure cooperation.

“We have announced our commitment to continuing the path of dialogue and diplomacy. We have shown our full readiness by participating in several rounds of negotiations,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran.

“The decision regarding the timing of the negotiations was made based on the proposal of the Omani side and with the coordination of both parties," he said, Oman a key mediator.

"The decision to postpone was logistical,” Baghaei said.

Talks between Iran and the US remain focused on nuclear-related issues and sanctions relief, the spokesman emphasized, pushing back against French calls to expand the negotiations to include non-nuclear matters.

“Such statements are not new, and they are not acceptable to us,” he said. “The scope of the talks is limited and confined to the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions.”

Responding to US President Donald Trump’s recent comments that Iran does not need nuclear energy given its fossil fuel reserves, Baghaei said, “Our peaceful nuclear program is based on rights enshrined in international law and dates back to the 1970s, when Iran’s energy needs were even less than today.”

Addressing recent Israeli military threats, Baghaei warned that Iran would respond decisively to any aggression. “The Iranian armed forces will respond to any act of hostility or adventurism in the strongest possible manner. There should be no doubt about that,” he said.

Baghaei criticized what he called Washington’s mixed signals that include both sanctions and calls for dialogue but reaffirmed Tehran’s willingness to continue diplomacy.

“If the US is sincere in its claim that Iran should not possess nuclear weapons, many issues can be resolved,” he said. “We have already declared clearly, and shown in practice, that we are not seeking to weaponize our nuclear program.”

Baghaei maintained that Iran is not orchestrating military actions through proxies, particularly in Yemen. “Iran needs no proxies in the region,” he said. “Yemen’s decisions are sovereign and independent, and the accusations are baseless.”

The US, which has designated the group a terrorist organization, has repeated warnings to Tehran that a failure to curb the Houthis' military attacks on the US and Israel, in addition to the militant group's blockade on global shipping, will result in military consequences for Iran.

"The Islamic Republic has never initiated a war in recent years and will not initiate any war in the future either, but if we are attacked or war is imposed on us, we will respond with strength," Defense Minister Aziz Nassirzadeh told the state TV when asked about US threats to attack Iran.

"If this war is initiated by the United States or Israel, the Islamic Republic will attack their interests, bases, and forces wherever they may be and whenever it deems necessary."

"We have no hostility toward neighboring countries—they are our brothers—but US bases are our targets," he said, referring to American bases in Arab countries neighboring Iran.

He also threatened to "employ weapons that have not been used until now" if a war is imposed on Iran.

The defense minister's remarks came after he unveiled Qassem Bassir, an upgraded ballistic missile that has a range of 1,200 km.

Nassirzadeh said the new missile can "easily overcome THAAD and Patriot missile defense systems thanks to its upgraded maneuverability.

He said the missile was upgraded after Israel intercepted Iranian ballistic missiles during the April and October 2024 attacks.

With the new upgrade, he said, Israel won't be able to intercept more than five missiles in 200.

Nassirzadeh said the latest upgraded missile has been added to all Iranian underground missile bases.

Of those, 169 were for drug-related offences, 153 for murder, 12 for security-related charges, and nine for rape.

Among those executed in April on security-related charges, seven were accused of ties to dissident political or religious groups, and one was accused of espionage for Israel.

Only two of the April executions were officially announced by the Iranian authorities.

Iran accounted for 64% of all known global executions in 2024, with at least 972 people executed, according to Amnesty International.

On Saturday, over 300 global figures—including UN experts, Nobel laureates, former ambassadors, judges, and human rights leaders— issued an urgent appeal for United Nations intervention to stop what they called a “campaign of politically motivated executions” in Iran.

“Hajj is a duty whose very structure is political,” Ali Khamenei said during a meeting with Hajj officials in Tehran. “It brings people together at a specific time and place, and this gathering has an inherently political nature.”

He added that the pilgrimage should serve the interests of Muslims, with the greatest benefit being unity among Islamic nations. “If Muslims were united, Gaza and Palestine would not suffer like this.”

While calling for Muslim solidarity, Khamenei implicitly warned Riyadh against rapprochement with Israel, saying that cooperation with Washington and Tel Aviv amounted to “oppression.”

His remarks follow reports of renewed Saudi-Israeli contacts brokered by US officials following the Gaza war.

The speech comes just weeks after Khamenei told visiting Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman that closer ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be mutually beneficial and should overcome hostile interference.

However, the tone of his latest address contrasts with that message, returning to the combative rhetoric that has historically strained Iran-Saudi ties—especially over the politicization of Hajj.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly warned against using the pilgrimage for sectarian or political activity, implementing strict rules to prevent disruptions.

Since the Gaza war, multiple pilgrims wearing the Palestinian flag have been removed from the holy site.

According to regulations released by the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in August, pilgrims are forbidden from bringing any prohibited items, such as pictures, books, flags, slogans, political publications, or other banned materials, into Saudi Arabia, according to the Saudi Gazette.

The kingdom’s 1987 clash with Iranian demonstrators during Hajj led to hundreds of deaths and a long diplomatic rift, which only began to heal with a China-brokered rapprochement in 2023.