TEHRAN: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed US President Donald Trump’s claims that American strikes destroyed Iranian nuclear facilities.
Khamenei told Trump to “keep dreaming” over the comments about the sites’ destruction in a statement on his official website.
He questioned the US president’s right “to say what a country should or should not have if it possesses a nuclear industry”.
Trump reiterated during a speech at the Israeli Knesset last week that the US confirmed “obliterating” Iranian nuclear sites during June strikes.
“So we dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities,“ Trump said.
“Totally as I said originally obliterating them and that’s been confirmed.”
In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Trump said Iran “no longer became the bully of the Middle East” after the US strikes which “destroyed their nuclear capability”.
He further called the strikes “the most beautiful military operation”.
The true impact of the US strikes remains unknown.
The Pentagon has said the strikes delayed Iran’s nuclear programme by between one and two years.
This contradicts an initial classified US intelligence report that found the setback was only by a few months, according to American media.
Khamenei on Monday called Trump’s remarks “improper, wrong, and bullying”.
The June war with Israel occurred two days before a planned sixth round of nuclear negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Nuclear talks have been derailed since, with Iran saying it was open to negotiations only if the US provided guarantees of no military action. – AFP
