Trump says thousands of missiles aimed at Iran as US sets Hormuz deadline

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, said the Islamic Republic’s negotiations had repeatedly ended in deception and gains for its enemies.

“The record of negotiations has always ended with broken promises, deception and benefits for the enemy, leaving only a bitter experience,” Nabavian wrote on X.

Posting an image pairing Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi with former president Hassan Rouhani and former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, he said negotiations were themselves “a form of war.”

Nabavian warned that trust, optimism and poorly drafted agreements could allow an adversary to turn what he described as victory on the battlefield into defeat.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said revenge for the killing of his father and others killed in the two recent wars would be carried out regardless of whether he or other officials remained in office.

“We pledge to avenge your pure blood and the blood of all the martyrs of these two wars against the criminal and disgraced killers,” Khamenei said. “This revenge is the demand of our nation, and it must certainly take place.”

He said those responsible would “take the hope of a peaceful death in their beds to the grave,” adding that retaliation did not depend on his own presence or that of other officials.

“Whether we are here or not, this will be achieved, and soon individuals among the freedom-seekers across the world will each carry out part of this divine mission,” he said.

The message was dated July 9, the day Ali Khamenei was buried in Mashhad, but was released on Saturday.

Hardline Iranian lawmaker Hamid Rasaei accused Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf of preventing Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi from answering lawmakers’ questions during more than four months of war, ceasefire and negotiations.

Rasaei wrote on Telegram that Ghalibaf had kept parliament out of session for four and a half months and had not allowed Araghchi to face even half an hour of questioning.

He contrasted this with a US congressional hearing involving Democratic Representative Seth Moulton and CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper, saying Iran’s parliament had held no oversight session on the war, ceasefire or memorandum signed with Washington.

Tehran will not enter negotiations with the United States unless Washington retreats from its current positions, the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency reported Saturday, citing a source close to Iran’s negotiating team.

The source said the Islamic Republic had not requested talks with Washington and would judge any US retreat by whether previously agreed arrangements were implemented.

Those conditions include establishing a special working group on Lebanon aimed at ending the war and securing a withdrawal, resolving navigation through the Strait of Hormuz under arrangements sought by Tehran, and restoring oil exports and flows to normal levels, Fars reported.

Influential hardline politician Saeed Jalili said negotiations should be judged solely by whether they strengthen Iran, describing diplomacy as a tool rather than an objective.

“Negotiation is a tool, not a goal. It may be effective at one point and ineffective at another,” Jalili, the Supreme Leader’s representative to the Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X.

“If it consolidates and increases the country’s power, it is valuable. If it weakens the country’s power, it is harmful,” he added.

Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei said Saturday that Tehran would pursue those it holds responsible for alleged war crimes during the two recent conflicts and seek compensation for the damage caused.

“War criminals must be punished in proportion to the crimes they committed, and they must also pay compensation,” Ejei said at a meeting with international lawyers involved in pursuing cases against Israeli officials.

He said Iran’s prosecutor-general, the judiciary’s international affairs office and its lawyers’ center were gathering evidence against the United States and Israel, including material related to Ali Khamenei’s killing and attacks on a school in Minab.

A US official told ABC News that any agreement with Iran would depend on Tehran handing over highly enriched uranium buried under rubble after US airstrikes, referring to the material as “nuclear dust.”

“Either they’re going to give us the nuclear dust or we have very low-cost military options to ensure that it remains buried underground forever,” the official said.

The official said Washington retained military, diplomatic and economic leverage if Iran refused.

“We have a lot of options if they resist giving the dust,” the official said. “The United States fundamentally has the cards. We want the dust.”

“But I want to be clear here that if we don’t get the dust, we do not have a deal with Iran,” the official added.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Oman on Saturday for talks on the Strait of Hormuz and efforts to prevent the renewed US-Iran confrontation from widening.

The latest escalation followed attacks on three commercial vessels using the shipping lane on the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz. Washington blamed Iranian forces and struck Iranian coastal and naval targets. Tehran disputed responsibility but warned that ships using routes not coordinated with it faced danger.

After the June ceasefire, commercial vessels increasingly used an Oman-backed southern corridor rather than Iran-designated routes.

The shift angered hardliners who feared it could weaken the Islamic Republic’s claim to control shipping through the strait.

The roughly 167-km waterway separates Iran from Oman’s Musandam Peninsula. At its narrowest it is about 54 km wide, with Iranian and Omani territorial waters covering the passage.

The established two-mile shipping lanes run mainly through Omani waters, but international law protects transit through straits used for global navigation.

The governor of Pakdasht said explosions heard east of Tehran were caused by a controlled operation to dispose of explosive materials.

“The explosions heard a few minutes ago in eastern Tehran province were related to a controlled operation to dispose of explosive materials,” the governor said. “There is no cause for concern for citizens.”

Residents in Pakdasht and Qiamdasht had earlier reported hearing several explosions, prompting speculation over their source.

The area lies near the Parchin and Khojir military-industrial complexes, which have been linked to the Islamic Republic’s missile, explosives and defense programs and have previously been targeted in Israeli strikes.

There was no indication that either facility had been attacked in the latest incident.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars News agency called for Iranian strikes on the ports of Haifa in Israel and Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates in response to a US attack on a railway bridge in northern Iran.

• 

  A remote bridge shows how US-Iran war is expanding

Fars described the strike on the the Aq Tekeh Khan railway bridge near Aqqala in Golestan province as part of a “war of corridors,” referring to competition over strategic transport and trade routes.

“We must target Haifa and Jebel Ali,” the agency wrote.

The hardline Kayhan newspaper separately called for missile strikes on the King Fahd Causeway, which links Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and on regional oil refineries.

“When the Aqqala bridge is targeted, the King Fahd Causeway should be targeted without prior warning,” Kayhan wrote. “If our refineries are attacked, their refineries should be attacked.”

Kayhan argued that countries hosting US forces should not be treated as independent actors if attacks on Iran were launched from their territory, saying that striking them would amount to striking the United States and Israel.