Tehran did not expect Israel to launch strikes before the sixth round of talks between Iran and the United States on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, scheduled for Sunday, June 15, The New York Times reports, citing its sources.
According to their information, Iran was developing an action plan in case of failure of negotiations with Washington, which could be followed by an attack by Israel. However, the leadership of the Islamic Republic perceived the reports of an imminent Israeli attack as an attempt to put pressure on Tehran and obtain concessions from it at the negotiating table.
Iran's confidence that the Jewish state would not start striking until Sunday led to ignoring the necessary precautions. In particular, on the eve of the Israeli attack, representatives of the Iranian military command did not take refuge in bunkers, but were in their own homes. In addition, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, the elite unit of the Iranian armed forces) Amir Ali Hajizadeh and a number of high-ranking military personnel ignored the ban on gatherings in one place and were killed as a result of an Israeli strike on a military base where they were holding an emergency meeting.
Earlier, the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic, Esmail Baghaei, statedthat, according to Iran, after the Israeli attack, negotiations between Washington and Tehran to resolve the crisis over the Iranian nuclear program have become meaningless.