Iran FM Abbas Araghchi has said that the ongoing was not Tehran’s but rather had been “imposed on us”, according to his remarks to Kyodo News shared by the Iranian embassy in Japan.

“Our message is that this war is not our war. This is a war that has been imposed on us. We were negotiating with the US when they decided to attack us. This was a clearly aggressive act; an illegal, unjustified, and unprovoked act of aggression.”

He was quoted as saying, “What we are doing is purely self-defence. We will continue to defend ourselves, however necessary and for as long as necessary.”

The Iranian FM expressed the hope that the entire world will have “a single voice against this aggression, that is, the aggression of the US and the Israeli regime and force them to stop this aggression”.