Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi rejected calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, telling NBC News that his country must "continue to fight for the sake of our people".
The United States and Israel are "killing our people, killing schoolgirls, attacking hospitals," he said.
He said Israel and the United States had already violated the ceasefire reached to end last year's 12-day war.
"Now you want a ceasefire again? That's not how it works. There must be a final end to the war, Araghchi said. We must continue to fight for the sake of our people and our security.”
On Friday, four sources told NBC News that Russia is providing Iran with intelligence on the location of U.S. forces in the Middle East, including intelligence that could help Iran locate U.S. warships.
When asked if Iran was receiving Russian support, Araghchi said that “the cooperation between Iran and Russia is not new, it is not a secret.” He did not say whether Russian intelligence is helping Iran locate U.S. military assets.
“They are helping us in many different ways. "I don't have the details," he said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Walz discussed reports of intelligence sharing by Russia with Iran, saying "there's no doubt that President Trump will deal with it appropriately."
When asked if he believed Russia had entered the conflict, Walz said, "We know that both Russia and Iran have connections."
"If they're providing anything, it's certainly not been very effective because the U.S. military is destroying Iran's air force, air defense, navy, ground forces, command and control," Walz said. So whatever they provide, if anything, it hasn't really helped them much."
On Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would no longer attack its Gulf neighbors unless they facilitated attacks by the United States or Israel. He apologized to the region after Iranian strikes killed people in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
But Araghchi said Iran had not "attacked our neighbors" intentionally.
"We are attacking American bases, American installations, American assets that are unfortunately located in the lands of our neighbors," he said.
Araghchi added that Pezeshkian apologized to the people of the region for "the inconvenience they have faced because of this aggression by the United States and the retaliation by us".
The Iranian minister also said that if the United States deploys ground troops in Iran, "we have very brave soldiers waiting for any enemy that enters our soil, to fight them, to kill them and to destroy them".
President Donald Trump said last week that one of the reasons for starting the war was that Iran would soon have missiles capable of reaching the United States, but Araghchi said that was not the case. true.
"This is actually disinformation, he said. You know, we have the capacity to produce missiles, but we have deliberately limited ourselves to a range of less than 2,000 kilometers because we don't want anyone else in the world to perceive us as a threat."
According to Iranian state media, Iran's Assembly of Experts has elected a new supreme leader after strikes killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but Araghchi did not give any information about who will replace him.
"Nobody knows, he said. There are many rumors. But you know, we have to wait for the Assembly of Experts to convene."
Pressed by Trump's comments that he wanted to participate in choosing Iran's next leader, Araghchi said that Iran "will not allow anyone to interfere in our internal affairs."
"It is up to the Iranian people to choose their new leader," he said. "They already elected the Assembly of Experts and the Assembly of Experts will do the job."
Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday that the US would not make a deal with Iran, "except for UNCONDITIONAL CAPITAL".
When asked what the president meant, Walz said he would "leave it to the president as commander in chief to determine what that ultimately looks like.".
"We are ahead of schedule and what he ultimately wants is almost common sense, Walz said. As he said, we need to have an Iranian government that is no longer threatening the American people, no longer threatening our allies and no longer threatening the world, and no longer holding the world's energy supply hostage with both its missiles and its navy."