US, ISRAEL CROSSED ‘BIG RED LINE,’ IRAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS. (PHOTO).

 US, Israel crossed ‘big red line,’ Iran FM says

The United States and Israel crossed a major red line in attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran’s top diplomat warned Sunday, saying he was heading to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin. “They crossed a very big red line by attacking (Iran’s) nuclear facilities,” Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul.

He was speaking just hours after President Donald Trump said US warplanes struck three Iranian nuclear sites, nine days into an Israeli bombing campaign targeting its nuclear facilities. “The most dangerous one happened only last night,” Araghchi said while acknowledging he did not know the full extent of the damage done in the strikes, including one at the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo.

“I still do not have exact information about the level of damages, but I don’t think it matters… Last night’s attack was a grave crime,” he said. “Through this action, the United States has dealt a serious blow to international peace and security,” he said, vowing that Iran would defend itself “by all means necessary against… US military aggression”.

Araghchi said he would head to Moscow on Sunday and hold talks with Putin on Monday morning. “I’m going to Moscow this afternoon” to hold “serious consultations with the Russian president tomorrow,” he said. After the strikes, Trump said Iran “must now agree to end this war”. But Araghchi said any demand to return to negotiations was “irrelevant”. “The world must not forget that it was the United States which — in the midst of a process to forge a diplomatic outcome — betrayed diplomacy by supporting the genocidal Israeli regime’s launch of an illegal war of aggression on the Iranian nation,” he said.