Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement read by a television presenter on Wednesday that his country will not accept US President Donald Trump’s call for an unconditional surrender.
In his first remarks outside of social media posts since Friday, when he delivered a speech broadcast on state media after Israel began bombarding Iran, Khamenei said peace or war could not be imposed on the Islamic Republic.
“Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender,” read the statement, which was billed as Khamenei’s “televised message to the Iranian nation.”
“The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage,” it said.
Israel on Friday launched a campaign of airstrikes in Iran to decimate the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which Jerusalem characterized as an imminent, existential threat. Iran has responded with deadly barrages of ballistic missiles civilian population centers and military targets in Israel.
The US says it has so far only taken indirect actions in the conflict, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel, but it’s begun to bolster its forces in the region, with Trump reportedly weighing taking a direct role in Israel’s strikes.
Trump called Tuesday for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” and said Washington knows the exact whereabouts of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but was holding off on assassinating him “for now.”
Earlier Wednesday, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Ali Bahreini called Trump’s remarks “completely unwarranted and very hostile. We cannot ignore them. We are vigilant about what Trump is saying. We will put it in our calculations and assessments.”
Speaking about Israeli strikes, he said Iran was “resolute” in responding, and would continue to do so “very, very, very seriously and strongly,” adding: “Nobody should expect Iran to show any kind of restraint.”
Speaking to the Human Rights Council, Bahreini said the Israeli attacks represented an act of “war against humanity” and criticized countries for not condemning them.
“We are hearing almost nothing from those self-proclaimed champions of human rights,” he said, calling on countries to condemn acts that he said exposed people to the risk of hazardous leaks.
“The deliberate targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities not only constitutes a grave violation of international law and UN Charter but also risks [exposure] of all people in our neighborhood to possible hazardous leak. This is not an act of war against our country, it is war against humanity,” said Bahreini.
The UN’s nuclear watchdog group, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has confirmed Israeli strikes on both the Natanz uranium enrichment plant and nuclear facilities in Isfahan, but said there have been no increases in radiation in the surrounding areas — though it warned there was a risk of contamination inside Natanz.
Iran, which has vowed to destroy the Jewish state, insists that its nuclear program is peaceful; however, it has been enriching uranium to levels that have no peaceful application, has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities, and has greatly expanded its ballistic missile capabilities.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.