Tehran will be ready to retaliate against US troops in the Middle East if the US joins military action taken by Israel, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with NBC News.
"When there is a war, both sides attack each other. That is understandable. "Self-defense is the legitimate right of every country," he said, responding to a question about whether Iran would retaliate, including against US troops in the region.
The head of the Islamic Republic's Foreign Ministry expressed confidence that US President Donald Trump, if he wanted, could convince Israel to stop attacking Iran with a single phone call.
"It only takes a phone call from Washington to Tel Aviv to end all this," Araghchi is convinced.
He plans to travel to the Russian capital on June 23 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The US may have used the talks with Iran as a cover to prepare an attack, the Iranian foreign minister said.
"Now it all depends on the US - whether they really want to find a diplomatic solution, or whether they originally had a different plan and still intended to attack Iran. "Maybe they needed the negotiations only as a cover," Araghchi noted.
He stressed that after recent events, Tehran does not understand how Washington can be trusted. "What they did is actually a betrayal of diplomacy," the minister added.