Abbas Araghchi: Islamic Republic Has No Intention to Erase Israel from World Map

Abbas Araghchi stated in an interview that the Islamic Republic’s policy has never been to erase Israel from the world map.

Abbas Araghchi, Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic, in a conversation with “Fox News” while denying the assassination of Donald Trump, the US President, senior officials of his government, and the erasure of Israel by the Islamic Republic, said: “Uranium enrichment has been halted due to the severity of damage caused to nuclear facilities by American attacks.”

He also downplayed the slogan “Death to America,” which continued after the attacks, and added: “We have always said, and the leader of the Islamic Republic and other officials of our country have also said, that the slogan ‘Death to America’ actually means death to the hegemonic policies of the United States and does not refer to the American people. There may be some individuals or extremist groups inside and outside Iran who interpret the slogan ‘Death to America’ differently, but this has never been our policy and will never be our policy in the future.”

Araghchi continued regarding Trump’s assassination: “After the death of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the official position of the Islamic Republic has never been an attempt to assassinate Trump or other officials of his previous government. It is not our policy to kill someone outside of Iran, let alone the president of another country.”

Araghchi’s remarks and denial of Trump’s assassination come at a time when in November of this year (2025), the US Department of Justice announced that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tasked a 51-year-old person with Afghan citizenship named “Farhad Shakeri” to design and execute a plan to assassinate Donald Trump.

Araghchi also, in response to the question “the role of the Islamic Republic in erasing Israel through its proxy groups in the region,” said that the Islamic Republic’s policy is not to erase Israel from the world map. This is despite the fact that Ali Khamenei in many of his speeches referred to Israel as a “cancerous tumor” that would soon be eradicated and destroyed.

The Persian page of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also responded to Araghchi’s comments on Fox News on the social network X, writing: “They are mistaken, but it is futile.”

Hossein Shariatmadari also responded to Araghchi’s comments, while noting that “erasing Israel was the Imam’s view and you should not conceal it,” wrote in Kayhan: “Mr. Araghchi says we have never intended to erase Israel from the world map! In this regard, it should be said that Israel is a fake regime and in the wise and intelligent expression of Imam (may God’s mercy be upon him), a cancerous tumor.

Just a cursory look at the savage crimes of this regime since its illegal establishment until now, including the recent crimes of the Zionists in Gaza and…, leaves no doubt about the correctness of the Imam’s view and the repeated emphasis of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution on the necessity of destroying and completely annihilating this criminal regime.

I wish Mr. Araghchi, after stating this sentence that “we have no intention to erase Israel from the geography of the world,” would have said that we, following the late Imam and his present successor, believe that “Israel must be erased from the pages of history,” meaning not only from the world map but from the arena of the world.”