Abbas Araqchi: The Islamic Republic did not intend to erase Israel from the world map
Abbas Araqchi stated in an interview that the policy of the Islamic Republic has never been to remove Israel from the world map.
In an interview with Fox News, Abbas Araqchi, the Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic, denied the assassination of US President Donald Trump and senior officials in his administration and the elimination of Israel by the Islamic Republic, and said: "Uranium enrichment has been halted due to the severity of the damage caused to nuclear facilities by the US attack."
He also downplayed the slogan "Death to America," which continued after the attacks, adding: "We have always said, and the Leader of the Islamic Republic and other officials in our country have also said, that the slogan "Death to America" is actually death to the hegemonic policies of the United States and does not refer to the people of the United States. There may be some extremist individuals or groups inside and outside Iran who present the slogan "Death to America" in a different light, but this has never been our policy and will never be our policy in the future."
Regarding Trump's assassination, Araqchi continued: "After the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, the official position of the Islamic Republic has never been an attempt to assassinate Trump or other officials of his previous administration. It is not our policy to kill anyone outside of Iran, let alone the president of another country."
Araqchi's statements and denial of Trump's assassination come while in November of this year (2025), the US Department of Justice announced that the Revolutionary Guards had assigned an Afghan citizen named "Farhad Shakeri," 51, to design and execute a plan to assassinate Donald Trump.
Iraqi also responded to the question of "the role of the Islamic Republic in eliminating Israel through its proxy groups in the region" and said that the policy of the Islamic Republic is not to eliminate Israel from the world map, while Ali Khamenei had described Israel as a "cancerous tumor" in many of his speeches that would soon be eradicated and destroyed.
The Persian page of the Israeli Foreign Ministry also responded to Araqchi's comments to Fox News on the X social network, writing: "They have resorted to making mistakes, but it is useless."
Hossein Shariatmadari also reacted to Araqchi's remarks, noting that "the destruction of Israel was the Imam's intention, you should not hide it," and wrote in Kayhan: "Mr. Araqchi says that we never intended to wipe Israel off the map of the world! In this regard, it must be said that Israel is a fake regime and, in the wise and intelligent words of the Imam (may Allah be pleased with him), a cancerous tumor."
Just a cursory glance at the brutal crimes of this regime since its illegal establishment until now, including the recent crimes of the Zionists in Gaza, etc., leaves no doubt in the correctness of the Imam's opinion and the repeated emphasis of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution on the necessity of the complete elimination and destruction of this criminal regime.
I wish Mr. Araqchi, after saying, “We did not intend to erase Israel from the geography of the world,” had said, “We believe, following the late Imam and his current successor, that “Israel must be erased from the face of the earth,” meaning that it must be erased not only from the world map but also from the world stage.”
