Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he will visit Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, Agence France-Presse reported. He said he would leave for there today. His meeting with Putin will be tomorrow. Araghchi made this statement on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul, BTA reported.
Araghchi said the US and Israel had crossed a major red line, referring to the US strikes on critical Iranian nuclear sites last night.
"There is no red line that they have not crossed. And the last and most dangerous one was crossed yesterday evening. "They crossed a big red line by attacking nuclear facilities," Araghchi said.
He said Iran would defend itself with all possible and necessary means after the US strikes. Tehran's top diplomat accused the US and Israel of deciding to blow up diplomacy.
"We were negotiating with the US about the Iranian nuclear program when Israel decided to blow up this diplomacy", Araghchi said, recalling that now that Iran has decided to negotiate with the EU countries, the US has decided to blow up this diplomacy in turn.
In response to European calls for Iran to return to the negotiating table, Araghchi said: "How could Iran return to something it has never left and even less has never destroyed?".
"Russia categorically condemns the strikes carried out by the United States at dawn on June 22 on a number of nuclear facilities in Iran, carried out following Israeli attacks on the Islamic Republic," the Russian Foreign Ministry reported.
They emphasize that "The irresponsible decision to subject the territory of a sovereign state to missile and bomb strikes, regardless of the arguments it is based on, grossly violates international law, the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions, which previously unequivocally qualified such actions as unacceptable. The risk of escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, already engulfed by multiple crises, is increasing significantly," the diplomatic service said. A conversation between Russian and US presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump after the US strikes on Iran has not yet been planned. However, if necessary, it can be quickly organized, the Russian leader's press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS.
"Putin and Trump understand the need for a meeting. And, as far as I understand, they really intend to hold such a meeting. But both are aware that the meeting must be prepared. First, the "homework" must be done at an expert level. "And then the time will come for such a meeting," the Kremlin spokesman said.