Iran’s president says the country is in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe.
The remarks come ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump in Washington.
Recent US and Israeli strikes on Iran killed nearly 1,100 people, prompting Iranian retaliation.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has said the country is locked in a “full-scale war” with the United States, Israel and Europe, framing the confrontation as more complex than the Iran–Iraq war of the 1980s, according to AP.
The remarks were made ahead of a scheduled meeting on Monday between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump, with Iran expected to be a central issue in the discussions, AP reported.
Speaking in an interview published on Saturday on the website of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian said Western powers were actively seeking to undermine Iran’s stability. “We are in a full-scale war with the U.S., Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable,” he said.
According to AP, Pezeshkian compared the current confrontation to the 1980–1988 war with Iraq, arguing that the present situation is more difficult despite the earlier conflict leaving more than one million people dead across both sides. He described the West’s campaign against Iran as “more complicated and more difficult” than the war with Iraq.
The comments come amid heightened regional tensions following Israeli and US strikes on Iran during a 12-day air war in June. AP reported that nearly 1,100 Iranians were killed in the attacks, including senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.
Iran responded with missile barrages targeting Israel, which killed 28 people, according to AP. The exchange has further strained relations as Washington and Tel Aviv continue to assess their next steps, with Iran likely to feature prominently in talks between Trump and Netanyahu during the Israeli leader’s US visit.
(With inputs from AP)
