Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said his country emerged victorious over Israel and "delivered a slap to America's face" on Thursday. The speech in a video broadcast marked Khamenei's first public comments since a US-brokered ceasefire was declared between the two countries following 12 days of conflict. He told viewers that Washington had only intervened in the fighting because "it felt that if it did not intervene, the (Israeli) regime would be utterly destroyed." Khamenei said that the US "achieved no gains from this war." "The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a slap to America's face," he said, in apparent reference to an Iranian missile attack on a US base in Qatar on Monday, which resulted in all rockets neutralized and no casualties. Khamenei has not been seen in public since reportedly taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the conflict on 13 June, when Israel struck multiple military targets and nuclear facilities in Iran. Following a massive US bombing attack last Sunday that struck Iran's main nuclear facility, Fordow, with bunker-buster bombs, Washington and President Donald Trump negotiated a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday. Khamenei did release a video message last Sunday at the height of the conflict, and state-run media outlets announced he would make an appearance in a video message to his compatriots on Thursday. The ayatollah also congratulated Iran "on the victory" over Israel in a post on X. Khamenei downplayed the impact of the US strike on three of the country's nuclear sites, suggesting they had "failed to achieve anything significant". This directly contradicts Donald Trump's claims that the US had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program when 125 military aircraft targeted the sites of Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. Speaking at the Nato summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, Trump rejected a Pentagon intelligence report that suggested the US had only set back Iran's program "by a few months". Instead, Trump insisted that the nuclear sites in Iran were "completely destroyed" and accused the media of "an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history". Standing alongside Trump at the Nato podium, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also dismissed the report, and argued that the evidence of what had been bombed "is buried under a mountain, devastated and obliterated". And this was followed-up by CIA director John Radcliffe, who later said there was "credible intelligence" Iran's nuclear programme had been "severely damaged". Iran's supreme leader said the US military action was never about nuclear issues or nuclear enrichment — but about "surrender". Khamenei continued, saying that the Iranian people demonstrated their unity — sending a message that "our people are one voice". He said Trump called on Iran to "surrender", but his comments were "too big for the mouth of the president of the United States". "For a great country and nation like Iran, the very mention of surrender is an insult," Khamenei added. He said Trump accidentally revealed a truth — that the Americans have been opposing the Islamic Republic of Iran from the very beginning. He said Trump had made an "unusually exaggerated" account of what had taken place. It was clear he needed to do it, said Khamenei, adding that anyone listening could tell the US were overstating things to distort the truth. "We attacked one of the US's key bases in the region, and here, they tried to downplay it," he said. Khamenei's speech came a day after Iran's parliament approved a bill to suspend cooperation with the UN's nuclear watchdog, as politicians unanimously supported the move against the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), according to Iranian state media. The bill, which states that the Supreme National Security Council must authorize any future IAEA inspection, will need to be approved by the unelected Guardian Council to become law. "The International Atomic Energy Agency, which refused to even marginally condemn the attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, put its international credibility up for auction," Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on state television. "The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran will suspend its cooperation with the IAEA until the security of our nuclear facilities is guaranteed," he added. Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei stated on Thursday morning that Tehran has a "right" to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. "Iran has the full right under Article 4 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and it is determined to uphold that right under any circumstances," Baghaei said. The US "must be held accountable for the aggression it committed against Iran in collusion with Israel," he added, claiming that the bunker buster strikes "destroyed diplomacy". — Agencies
