Iran says not seeking war but ready to fight, warns of retaliation

Iran is not seeking war, but it is ready to keep fighting, Tehran's ambassador to Moscow, Kazem Jalali, said in an exclusive interview with RT, arguing that the Islamic Republic has never been the side to abandon diplomacy despite repeated stabs in the back.

“The general policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is that if the other side is willing to negotiate, we will negotiate. If they want war, we will fight,” Jalali told RT on Thursday.

The ambassador stressed that Tehran has never "betrayed" or left the negotiating table, contrasting that with Washington's behavior under President Donald Trump.

“In the record of the US President, there was the tearing up of the JCPOA, and there have been two attacks against us while talks were ongoing,” he said. “If they want to continue this trend, it is natural that the Islamic Republic of Iran will fight. But if they intend to negotiate, we are ready for systematic negotiations with strong guarantees to establish lasting peace and to preserve and protect Iran's rights and compensate for our losses,” he added.

Earlier this week, President Trump announced that he was extending the ceasefire with Iran indefinitely while waiting for what he called a "unified response" to his deal from Tehran, portraying the Iranian leadership as fractured and badly weakened.

Tehran has pushed back hard on that narrative. In a coordinated show of unity on Thursday, President Masoud Pezeshkian and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf published near-identical statements declaring that there are no "hardliners" or "moderates" in Iran, only "Iranians and revolutionaries," and vowing that the country's "ironclad unity" would make the aggressor regret its actions.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi struck the same note, saying Iran's state institutions continue to act with "unity, purpose, and discipline," and that "the battlefield and diplomacy are fully coordinated fronts in the same war."