24/06/2025

TUESDAY | JUNE 24, 2025

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We will end this war, Iran warns US o Trump raises idea of regime change

France ‘determined’ to recognise state of Palestine LONDON: The French foreign minister yesterday reiterated that they are determined to recognise the state of Palestine “in a collective movement”, saying that nothing “should make us forget” what is happening in Gaza. Speaking to reporters ahead of the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels, Jean-Noel Barrot reiterated the country’s call for the immediate entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas. Noting that foreign ministers of the EU member states will discuss the Association Agreement between Israel and the bloc, he noted that the EU report showed indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. “We remain determined to recognise the state of Palestine in a collective movement involving all stakeholders and aimed at making possible a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he noted. Meanwhile, also speaking to reporters ahead of the meeting, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares called for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. KYIV: Ukraine said yesterday that “another massive attack” on the capital Kyiv killed at least five people, a day after the country’s top military commander vowed to intensify strikes on Russia. Diplomatic efforts to end the three year war have stalled, with the last direct meeting between the two sides almost three weeks ago and no follow up talks scheduled. AFP journalists in Kyiv heard the buzzing of a drone flying over the city centre and explosions, as well as gunfire. “Another massive attack on the capital. Possibly, several waves of enemy drones,” said a statement from Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration. Four people were killed in Shevchenkivsky district, where part of a residential high-rise building was destroyed, and another person was killed to the south in Bila Tserkva, said Interior Minister Igor Klymenko. AFP journalists saw around 10 people sheltering in the basement of a residential building in the centre of the capital waiting for the attack to end. The latest strikes came after Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky vowed to intensify strikes on Russia. “We will not just sit in defence because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,” he told reporters, including AFP. Syrsky said Ukraine would continue its strikes on Russian military targets,

overnight. In Kermanshah, in western Iran, missile and radar infrastructure was targeted, and in Tehran a surface-to-air missile launcher was struck, it said. Iranian news agencies reported air defences had been activated in central Tehran districts, and Israeli air strikes had hit Parchin, the location of a military complex southeast of the capital. Iran says more than 400 people have been killed in the Israeli attacks, mostly civilians, but has released few images of the damage since the initial days of the bombing. Tehran, a city of 10 million people, has largely emptied, with residents fleeing to the countryside to escape attacks. Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on Israel have killed 24 people, all civilians, and injured hundreds, the first time a significant number of Iranian missiles have ever penetrated Israeli defences. Iran’s parliament has approved a move to close the Strait of Hormuz that leads into the Gulf, which would require approval from the Supreme National Security Council, a body led by an appointee of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Attempting to strangle the strait could send global oil prices skyrocketing, derail the world economy and invite conflict with the US Navy’s massive Fifth Fleet that patrols the Gulf from its base in Bahrain. “It’s economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with that,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. As Tehran weighed its options, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow yesterday. The Kremlin has a strategic partnership with Iran, but also close links with Israel. – Reuters “The Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia recalled former Secretary of State Colin Powell making the case at the Security Council in 2003 that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein constituted an imminent danger to the world because of the country’s stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. “Again we’re being asked to believe the fairy tales, to once again inflict suffering on millions of people living in the Middle East. This cements our conviction that history has taught our US colleagues nothing,” he said. Iran requested the Security Council meeting on Sunday. Iran’s Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani accused Israel and the US of destroying diplomacy, said all US allegations are unfounded and that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty “has been manipulated into a political weapon”. “Instead of guaranteeing parties’ legitimate rights to peaceful nuclear energy, it has been exploited as a pretext for aggression and unlawful action that jeopardise the supreme interests of my country,” Iravani said. It was not immediately clear when the council could vote on the draft resolution. A resolution needs at least nine votes in favour and no vetoes to pass. – Reuters

ISTANBUL: Iran said yesterday that the attack on its nuclear sites expanded the range of legitimate targets for its armed forces and called President Donald Trump a “gambler” for joining Israel’s military campaign. Since Trump joined Israel’s campaign by dropping massive bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday, Iran has repeatedly threatened to retaliate. But while it has continued to fire missiles at Israel, it has yet to take action against the United States. “Mr Trump, the gambler, you may start this war, but we will be the ones to end it,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesperson for Iran’s central military headquarters, said yesterday in English at the end of a recorded video statement. Iran and Israel traded another wave of air and missile strikes yesterday as the world braced for Tehran’s response. Trump’s administration has repeatedly said that its aim is solely to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme, not to open a wider war. But in a social media post on Sunday, Trump openly spoke of

A protester in Los Angeles makes her stand clear on Sunday. – REUTERSPIC

toppling the hardline clerical rulers who have been Washington’s principal foes in the Middle East since Iran’s 1979 revolution. “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn’t there be a regime change???” he wrote. Experts surveying commercial satellite imagery said it appeared that the attack had severely damaged the site of Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant, built inside a mountain, and possibly destroyed it and the uranium-enriching

NEW YORK: The UN Security Council met on Sunday to discuss strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites as Russia, China and Pakistan proposed the 15-member body adopt a resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the Middle East. “The bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities by the United States marks a perilous turn,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Sunday. “We must act – immediately and decisively to halt the fighting and return to negotiations on the Iran nuclear programme.” Russia and China condemned the US strikes. “Peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved by the use of force,”said China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong. “Diplomatic means to address the Iranian nuclear issue haven’t been exhausted, and there’s still hope for a peaceful solution.” But acting US Ambassador Dorothy Shea told the council the time had come for Washington to act decisively, urging the Security Council to call upon Iran to end its effort to eradicate Israel and terminate its drive for nuclear weapons. “Iran long obfuscated its nuclear weapons programme and stonewalled our good-faith efforts in recent negotiations,” she said. centrifuges it housed, although there was no independent confirmation. Trump called the strike a “Bullseye!!!”. “Monumental damage was done to all nuclear sites in Iran,” he wrote. “The biggest damage took place far below ground level.” Israel’s airstrikes on Iran have met little resistance from Iranian defences since Israel launched its surprise attack on June 13, killing many of Iran’s top commanders. The Israeli military said yesterday that about 20 jets had conducted a wave of strikes against military targets in western Iran and Tehran

Chaired by the bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, the foreign affairs council is expected to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, China, and the situation in the Middle East. – Bernama Attack on Kyiv kills at least five

Russia, China, Pakistan push for ceasefire

Rescuers evacuating residents from a damaged building in Kyiv. – AFPPIC

ground later in the day killed three others, officials said. In wide-ranging remarks, Syrsky conceded that Russia had some advantages in drone warfare, particularly in making fibre-optic drones that are tethered and difficult to jam. “Here, unfortunately, they have an advantage in both the number and range of their use,” he said. He also claimed that Ukraine still held 90 sq km of territory in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched an audacious cross-border incursion last August. – AFP

which he said had proved “effective”. “Of course we will continue. We will increase the scale and depth,” he said. Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes on Russia throughout the war, targeting energy and military infrastructure sometimes hundreds of kilometres from the front line. Kyiv says the strikes are a fair response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians. At least four people were killed in an overnight Russian strike on an apartment building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, while a strike on a Ukrainian army training