Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, provided his first public statement since the ceasefire between the country and Israel, claiming Iran was “victorious.”
“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” Khamenei said, as per the Associated Press, adding that the “action can be repeated in the future too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price.”
The statement was made during a 10-minute speech aired on Iranian state television.
In a statement on X, Khamenei said, “My congratulations on our dear Iran’s victory over the US regime. The US regime entered the war directly because it felt that if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed. It entered the war in an effort to save that regime but achieved nothing.”
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Rafael Grossi told reporters that Iran’s nuclear facilities “suffered enormous damage.”
“I know there’s a lot of debate about the degree of annihilation, total destruction, and so on, what I can tell you, and I think everyone agrees on this, is that very considerable damage has been done,” he said, noting, “Obviously, you have to go to the site and that is not easy, there is debris and it is no longer an operational facility.”
The Iranian parliament has moved to ban the IAEA from working with its government in inspecting nuclear facilities.
Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said prior to the vote that the IAEA, “which did not even formally condemn the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, has put its international credibility up for sale; for this reason, the [Atromic Energy Organization of Iran] will suspend its cooperation with the Agency until the security of its nuclear facilities is guaranteed, and Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will proceed at an even faster pace.”
