Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned Thursday it would be "a disaster" if the U.S. sent ground troops into Iran, adding that the Islamic Republic is not seeking a ceasefire and has no intention of negotiating to end the conflict that began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes.
Araghchi told NBC News that after six days of war against Iran, "It is clear that the U.S. has failed to achieve its main goal, which was a clean, rapid victory."
"They failed to achieve that, and now they are trying to justify why they did attack us," he said. "And they have, you know, presented so many different reasons, but none of them worked. And now they are talking about, you know, Plan B. And I, I believe that, you know, Plan B would be even a bigger failure."
The White House on Wednesday declined to rule out deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran, echoing comments Monday from President Donald Trump while emphasizing such a move is not part of the current plan for Operation Epic Fury.
Araghchi said Iran is "confident" it can confront the U.S. military if Trump decides to use ground troops.
"And that would be a big disaster for them," Araghchi said.
Trump said Monday he would not make blanket promises about avoiding ground troop deployments. He added that he expected the conflict to last "four weeks or so," though he signaled the timeline could shrink given what he described as rapid progress.
The war "is not our war," Araghchi said. "This is a war of choice by the United States. We are not asking for a ceasefire, and we don't see any reason why we should negotiate."
The U.S. and Iran had been in high-stakes negotiations for months over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program. The sides last met Feb. 26 in Geneva. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff described Tehran's posture during negotiations as defiant and said it quickly became clear a meaningful agreement would be difficult, if not impossible.
"Negotiate with the U.S. when we negotiated with them twice, and every time they attacked us in the middle of negotiations?" Araghchi said, referring to Operation Midnight Hammer, which destroyed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June, as well as Operation Epic Fury. "So, there is no request for a ceasefire by us, and there is no request for the negotiation with the U.S. from us."
When asked why Iran has launched attacks targeting U.S. assets across nearly a dozen neighboring Arab countries during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, Araghchi said, "We have not attacked our neighbors. We have not attacked Muslim countries."
"We have attacked Americans targets and American bases, American installations, which are unfortunately located in the soils of our neighbors," he said. "So, we have made it clear for them, I have been in touch with their foreign ministers, and I have explained that, 'We are not targeting you. We have no problem with you. We have only, are only targeting the American installations.'"
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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