Hours after the United States and Israel launched a major offensive against the Islamic Republic and President Donald Trump called on his people to overthrow the leader, the country’s foreign minister told NBC News that transforming the Iranian regime was “mission impossible.”
“You can’t have a regime change while millions of people support the so-called regime,” Abbas Araghchi said in an interview from the capital Tehran.
He said the 86-year-old’s whereabouts are unknown after Israel targeted the country’s political leaders, but “as far as I know” Supreme Leader Khamenei is alive.
On Thursday, Iran’s negotiating team met with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Geneva, Switzerland, with the aim of averting a potential military attack, and “a deal was within reach,” Araghchi said.
“We were able to address serious issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program. We clearly have differences, but we resolved some of those differences and decided to continue to resolve the remaining issues,” he said, adding that he did not know why “they decided to attack us” while talks were ongoing.
Aragushi said other senior officials in the administration were alive, including the attorney general and President Massoud Pezeshkian, the speaker of parliament. Two commanders were killed.
The airstrike took place during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting, and came weeks after a U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Syria Flores, and brought them to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.
It is also the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic.
In a video announcing a “massive combat operation,” President Trump told Iranians to “take over your government” when the US is finished. “That’s what you get,” he said. “This is probably the only chance for generations.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed his comments, saying the operation “creates conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”
But Araghchi said it would be impossible to bring about regime change because the Iranian government is “supported by the people.”
Last month, unprecedented nationwide turmoil prompted Iranian authorities to launch a deadly crackdown.
The US-based Human Rights Defenders News Agency said it had confirmed more than 7,000 deaths and was investigating thousands more. The group says it confirms each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that the data is subject to “multiple internal checks.”
The Iranian government admitted that more than 3,000 people were killed.
“Yes, there are people who are complaining, but there are also strong supporters of the regime,” Araghchi said. “And we have a very established political structure.”
Araghchi said millions of people took to the streets in cities across the country to commemorate the recent anniversary of the 1979 revolution.
He added that countries like the United States have tried this in the past and failed, so if they try to repeat their failures, “you’re not going to get any better results.”
Araghchi said that although there is “no communication at this time” with the United States, the Iranian government is interested in de-escalating tensions and is open to dialogue once the joint U.S.-Israel attacks end.
He said Iran is “certainly interested in de-escalating tensions” and that U.S. negotiators may reach out to Iran if they want to restart negotiations. “This is a war that America chose, and America will have to pay for it,” he added. “But as far as we’re concerned, we don’t want war.”
Aragushi disputed President Trump’s claim in the State of the Union that the Islamic Republic was building missiles capable of attacking the United States, saying Iran had no such intentions and was intentionally limiting the range of its missiles.
“We don’t want to do that because we have no animosity towards the American people,” he said. He added that Iran was producing weapons “to protect itself from its enemies.”
U.S. forces are attacking our people in our cities, he said, “but this is not what we are trying to do. We are attacking U.S. military bases, regional military bases, military installations and installations, and this is just as an act of self-defense.”
He also cited what Iran claimed was a deadly attack on a school in the southern city of Minab. Dozens of people were killed in the incident, local officials said.
In an earlier post on X, he shared a photo of dozens of people surrounding a heavily damaged building with smoke billowing from the facility, saying it was “bombed in broad daylight packed with young students.”
