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IDF: Iran Fires Missiles At Israel Since U.S. Strikes; Trump Announces U.S. Air Strikes On Three Nuclear Sites in Iran; Iran FM: U.S. Strikes Will Have "Everlasting Consequences"; Araghchi Calls For Emergency Session of Security Council. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired June 22, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[05:00:20]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hello and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and around the world. I'm Becky Anderson for you from our Middle East Broadcasting Headquarters in Abu Dhabi with breaking news from this region. And we are getting our first look at what may be the aftermath of the U.S. strikes overnight on nuclear facilities inside Iran.
Iran's official state news agency published this video a short time ago. It says this is smoke rising from the Fordo Nuclear Facility. That is where American B-2 bombers dropped bunker buster bombs.
U.S. President Donald Trump hailed the attack as a spectacular military success in an address from the White House a short time later.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT: Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: Well, I want to start in Israel. CNN's Diplomatic Editor -- International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson is live in Tel Aviv where he is in front of what appears to be a significant damage from an Iranian missile shot overnight. Nic, what can you tell us?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, Becky, this was the missile that came in around about 7:45 local time this morning. It was about almost five hours after the United States hit its targets inside of Iran. This is the first time we've got into the site here. We don't have a lot of time. I'm going to try to show and tell you everything that we're seeing. There's several houses here that are completely demolished.
Sanjeev's going to kind of give you a look there. But you can see, look, the concrete that was standing as the walls is collapsed. The rebar is there and twisted out. That's just one side. The trees are shredded. And just look at this apartment building behind me here. Just look at all this damage. There's a rescue recovery worker up there inside the building. But just look at all these apartments that are shredded here.
Becky, look, that's not the end of it. This apartment building at the end, damaged. This apartment building here, again, look, windows, window frames ripped out. This building here, ripped apart. The missile appears to have come down right in this area. We were in our bomb shelter in the hotel after the sirens went off.
We were listening. We heard a loud explosion. We believe that this may have been from that loud explosion during those strikes. This is one of four sites that we're aware of in Israel where there were impacts. 86 people taken to hospital. The other sites that were hit were one in Haifa in the north, two others in the center of Israel.
Becky, I've seen a number of the blast sites so far. This one, there's damaged buildings on one side of the road here, on the other side of the road here. I don't think I've seen quite this level of damage so far. It isn't clear to me yet precisely what missile impacted here, but the damage is at a bigger level.
Look -- and Sanjeev, just take the viewers into this room here. Just look at those children's toys, coloring book, just hanging out of that apartment there. Move on to the next room. Furniture smashed and piled up. I can see cupboards in there. I can see mattresses. I can see clothes on a dryer that must have been in the room. The next room, the same. The cupboards blasted open. Everything ripped apart.
Now, what the police spokesman here was telling us a little earlier is the casualty toll here could have been much worse if people hadn't been in their shelters.
The government, since the United States struck in Iran, the government in Israel has put the country, if you will, on a sort of a greater level of preparedness. No schools, nobody to go to work unless it's absolutely essential work. Nobody to go on the beaches. No public gatherings.
This is the footing that Israel is on at the moment. And this is the reason why, because at the moment, the government is trying to figure out how Iran is going to respond with its missile salvoes, about 30 missiles, we were told, fired in this morning, how the government is going to respond here and how Iran is going to respond to the fact that the United States, in their words, has upped the situation here.
[05:05:11]
And Sanjeev, if you can just come back to me here, just going to take our viewers along here a little bit and just try to point out one of the bits of building here behind the metal windows there, that room that's left standing there and all that other destruction, the one that's got the metal shutters there. That was the bomb shelter. That's the room that many of these buildings have, that people go to for shelter. It's got toughened concrete on the walls. It's got these blast door -- metal blast doors where the windows would be in any other room.
And so what you're seeing here, in essence, is how people managed to survive such a massive and violent blast in a building that the room designated and structurally made stronger as a bomb shelter actually withstands the impact. And I think that that's going to be something that many Israelis will take away from today and they'll see that and they'll say, we know -- we know why we're going to these places. We know why the government's telling us to get there.
And from what we're seeing there, from what we understand about it right now, overnight last night in the early hours this morning, 7:45 a.m. That blast shelter. That was what was left standing in these shredded buildings here, Becky.
ANDERSON: Nic, thank you. Nic Robertson is in a suburb there of Tel Aviv. And more from Nic and our other reporters out of Israel, as and when we get it. Thank you.
Iranian officials and media contradicting Mr. Trump's claim that their nuclear sites were obliterated by the U.S. strikes, an Iranian lawmaker claims the attack on the Fordo nuclear facility was, quote, "quite superficial." While a state news outlet says that the only -- only the entrance and exit tunnels were damaged.
CNN's Fred Pleitgen was the first Western journalist to enter Iran after the conflict with Israel began. He filed this report from Tehran before Iran's latest salvo on Israel. This was the report he filed some hours ago.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Iran is deeply condemning the strikes on its nuclear facilities by the Trump administration. Iran's Atomic Energy Organization has come out and called these savage attacks on these nuclear facilities. They also say that they are against international law and have accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of being complicit in all of this.
But one of the key things is that the Iranians are saying that this will not deter their nuclear program. And there is a senior Iranian parliamentarian who came out in the very early morning hours on social media and said that the United States, as he put it, can bomb facilities, but cannot bomb knowledge. Obviously, also saying that Iran's nuclear program and Iranian enrichment will continue.
One of the things that we've been hearing from Iranian officials over the past couple of days is they say that they will continue enrichment in any case. It's a red line for them, they say. At the same time, of course, they are in the standoff right now with the Israelis. We've been seeing over the past couple of hours. The skies here right now are fairly quiet. But in the overnight hours, there was a lot of activity by air defense systems here over Tehran.
Also, some thuds, which could have come from airstrikes, but could have been the air defenses being active as well. The Iranians are saying that they have various means of hitting back at the United States. It's not clear how they're going to do that.
They do, of course, say that there are militias that are on their side in the Middle Eastern regions, in countries where the United States has bases. But in general, the Iranians are saying there are many methods at their disposal.
Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: Well, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the International Atomic Energy Agency all say that there has been no increase in offsite radiation. The IAEA posting that update shortly after those U.S. strikes, and trying to assure people in this region where CNN has our programming headquarters and reporters around the region that there are real concerns about environmental contamination from strikes, just like those that we've just seen, that far from the only reaction that we are seeing so far.
Let's get more on what we are seeing on the ground and around the world. We've seen as chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour. She's following the breaking news live from London. And Christiane, let's just start with some of the reaction that we are getting in that we can report.
The Saudis have condemned these U.S. strikes and called for de- escalation. The Qataris have just posted something very, very similar. There is -- we would expect to see more of that as we move through this day. The question is at the moment, we don't know what sort of impact these U.S. strikes have had nor what sort of damage has been actually wrought to the nuclear installations in Iran.
[05:10:14]
At this point, we're told this was effectively a one off by Donald Trump. But we really have more unanswered questions than we have answered at this point, your sense.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Becky, certainly here, the prime minister has sent out a message saying that, you know, they agreed that the United States had helped. They use the word alleviate any Iranian nuclear threat. Should there be one? And so that's the message from here.
The Arab states that you mentioned in the region are clearly concerned. Why? Not just because of the environmental fallout, obviously, but because they all have U.S. bases on their territory. So, that goes to the question. The fundamental question right now is what is Iran going to do?
Not against Israel, because that is a declared war that's going on and it's been going on for the last eight or nine days. So, Israel expects Iran retaliation. Israel is still hitting Iran. The real question is the real question now is will Iran hit in retaliation to American targets? And if so, where, how, what, when? How will they telegraph it?
You remember after Trump ordered the assassination with Israeli help of General Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, Iran telegraphed that it would have to retaliate. But it did so in a way that did not do significant damage to either the base or to any personnel. That was a clear, measured response.
We do not know what's going to happen in response to the current huge attack by the United States and the ongoing attacks by Israel.
We also don't know because we have not seen battle damage assessment in any fundamental form, exactly whether the facilities that President Trump said had been obliterated have in fact been obliterated. I spoke with the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, just a few days ago, and he said this much vaunted 30,000 bomb, yes, could penetrate.
But the -- the ability to take out the entire structure that they want to, all the centrifuges, the uranium enrichment program may have been overstated. We don't know -- this is apparently a dozen bombs that were dropped on Fordo by apparently 12 B-2s, according to the U.S. readout, more B-2s and these big mop bombs dropped on Natanz. And we are waiting to see that.
But the real -- the real next big phase in this will be if the Iranians do actually lash out against U.S. targets and if they do, how, as I said, how will they telegraph it, how big -- if at all and when? The next thing to say is that the Iranian leadership appears still to be intact. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, according to sources, is still directing Iran's response.
You've heard from "The New York Times" that Khamenei has replaced all his leaders who have been decapitated and assassinated by Israel, the military leaders, and has even put forth his view of who should replace him if he's assassinated. Foreign Minister Araghchi, who is currently in Istanbul at meetings after those, apparently those negotiations in Geneva didn't go -- didn't go anywhere.
Foreign Minister Araghchi has said what America did was outrageous and will have, quote, "everlasting consequences." So, all of this is -- is still up in the air. There are no clear answers. Of course, the timings of these strikes were meant, you know, they were during a period of telegraph negotiations, not just the first one last week when the Iranians were going two days later to the sixth round of talks with the U.S. in Oman.
And the timing of this one with President Trump telegraphing that he would make up his mind within two weeks and apparently it was going to be, you know, a deliberate process. Clearly, this was something that Iran now says was all a deception.
So, not only have they been struck, but there is a huge amount of mistrust, let's say, between all parties. So, how anybody comes to the table right now, as Trump demands to seek peace, as he demands, is going to take some very creative handling and we'll wait to see whether that in fact happens.
Becky.
ANDERSON: Now, I think you're making a couple of really good points there, not least, you know, what happens next from the Iranian side against the U.S. and whether or not that is against U.S. assets in this region of the Gulf. What we do know about these countries that are hosting U.S. bases in this region is that they are keeping their friends, the U.S. They have a very tight relationship with this Trump administration close and their erstwhile enemies, as it were, Iran, closer to a degree.
[05:15:18]
The rapprochement between the Saudis and the Iranians, the UAE and the Iranians has been on for some time now. The idea being that they are trying to deconflict this region, trying to offer sort of, you know, this is a sort of carrot and stick. We're trying to offer the Iranians, you know, an opportunity for economic integration going -- going forward if they back off from the sort of escalatory actions that they've been intent on being involved in over the past years.
There is no love lost for this regime's nuclear weapons, nuclear program, whether or not that includes nuclear weapons and nor its ballistic missile supply. How do you perceive the influence on Donald Trump at this point? We've been talking about Benjamin Netanyahu's influence on the U.S. president.
We've been talking to sources locally about the influence that some of these Gulf nations who have personal ties to Donald Trump have. How do you read who is most influential at this point and what happens next as far as the U.S. is concerned?
AMANPOUR: Well, 100%, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, is most influential. This is the end, the culmination of a project that he's had for decades. And as we've reported ad nauseum, no other American president allowed him to do this until Donald Trump came along and has allowed him to do this.
And to be honest, as an observer of Middle Eastern diplomacy, you know, whether it's, you know, in decades past, whether it was the -- the 2003 war against Iraq, I've never heard an American president come out and first and foremost congratulate the prime minister of Israel for a great job done. And for, as he said, we worked as a team, unlike any team has worked before. I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said.
And that completely and utterly links the United States with Israel. And Israel, in this case, is believed to be the dominant partner in what the United States should be doing in -- in -- in Iran. That has been documented in a very deeply reported article in "The New York Times."
And you can see it anyway. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to see who's leading who in this -- in this operation. So, the real question is, what are America's goals, its end goal? And what is Israel's end goal? And do the two actually align? The other question is that what about the timing of all of this?
Clearly, Israel has its logic of timing. What happened after October 7th? The degradation of Iranian proxies around the degradation of Iran's ability to respond, although you can see it is responding. But a lot of it was taken out during the war that erupted between them. The air war back in October, November, in response to Israeli assassinations on Iranian soil and the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah.
So, Israel is taking care of that, let's say, operational intelligence, tactical view. But the strategy is something, you know, what is the day after? Clearly, they've raised all sorts of, you know, wishful thinking about how this could completely change the Middle East. Maybe, maybe not. We just don't know. But that's their aim.
But what are the actual means to do that? What is the exit strategy? What is the plan to get to a day after? Israel doesn't even have a day after in Gaza, as we've also reported ad nauseam.
So, is this going to be an endless war of attrition? As Prime Minister Ehud Barak indicated to me, would be very, very negative for Israel and for the whole region or what?
Now, let's come to the Arab states who you mentioned. Of course, there's been no love lost. They do not like fundamentalism. They do not want to be threatened either by a Palestinian fundamentalist like Hamas or by Iranian fundamentalists. They have their own issues in their own countries.
However, they have also got reason to distrust Donald Trump and not know which way he's going to fall on any given day in terms of who he's going to defend and support.
Remember, when Saudi Arabian facilities were struck by Iran in Trump 1.0, Trump was going to, you know, send military in response and backed off at the last moment. So, they're not clear. So, they have now had, you know, new sort of deals with Iran, whereby they're not as hostile to Iran as they used to be and try to figure out, you know, how to maintain their own security in that region.
[05:20:09]
And finally, Iran. Iran most definitely is weakened. Iran most definitely is halfway, if not all the way into a corner. And how will it respond? And will it take any chance at a diplomatic route? Or will it be the best it can in terms of retaliation? So, these are all the aspects on the ground.
And finally, I heard, because remember, Iraq was attacked, you know, by the United States and a coalition, including the U.K. in 2003, based on an incorrect intelligence assessment that it had weapons of mass destruction, incorrect weapons intelligence. And that has had endless blowback for the last 20 plus years. So, the former Iraqi ambassador to the U.N. said on a radio station this morning, what about the timing? We are very, very worried about the timing.
We saw what happened to our country based on incorrect intelligence that led to a decapitation of our system and a complete, you know, dissolution of Iraq and terrorism and factionalism and, you know, all of that that happened. And intelligence has not yet said that Iran has decided to go for a nuclear weapon or that it would be able to do so, you know, within a quick period of time, it might take years.
To that point, the IAEA is concerned that Iran has gathered several hundred kilos of 60% enriched uranium. And the IAEA said to me and to others that they have never seen this amount of that enriched uranium in a nation that does not have a weapons program.
So, the IAEA has called an emergency meeting for tomorrow, for Monday. And we'll see what they say about all of this. But it's a -- it's a dramatic escalation in that region. And we really ought to know what is the end game and what's the off ramp and what is the exit strategy and what actually is the strategy.
Becky.
ANDERSON: Yeah, well, we started this by saying that there are more questions than answers at this point. You're right to say that we should -- we should know more. But we really don't at this point. And it's not like it's -- you know, we are -- we are seeking those answers. And it is to those key stakeholders to provide them.
Thank you, Christiane. Christiane Amanpour is CNN's Chief International Anchor live in London for you.
We're following breaking news out of Israel and Iran this hour when we return the latest on the U.S. strikes on Iran and what it could mean for the U.S. going forward. Stay with us.
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[05:25:49:]
SEYED ABBAS ARAGHCHI, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: -- violation of the fundamental principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. The warmongering and lawless administration in Washington. It's solely and fully responsible for the dangerous consequences and far-reaching implement -- implications of its act of aggression.
The U.S. military attack on the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of a U.N. member state carried out with genocidal Israeli regime, carried out in collusion with the genocidal Israeli regime has once again revealed the extent of the United States hostility towards the peace seeking people of Iran, who will never compromise over their independence and sovereignty. The Islamic Republic of Iran continue to defend Iran's territory,
sovereignty, security and people by all means necessary against not just U.S. military aggression, but also the reckless and unlawful actions of the Israeli regime.
While President Trump was elected on a platform of putting an end to America's costly involvement of forever wars in our part of the world, he has betrayed not only Iran by abusing our commitment to diplomacy, but also deceived his own voters by submitting to the wishes of a wanted war criminal who has grown accustomed to exploiting the lives and wealth of American citizens to further the Israeli regime's objectives.
The U.S. act of aggression against Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities constitutes not only a flagrant breach of the U.N. Charter, especially the prohibition of the use of force under Article two, paragraph four, and the obligation to respect the state's territorial integrity and sovereignty, but also a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231.
It cannot be emphasized enough how much of a devastating blow that the U.S., a permanent member of the Security Council, has dealt to the global non-proliferation regime. The Islamic Republic of Iran reminds the United Nations, the Security Council, the U.N. Secretary General, the International Atomic Energy -- and the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other relevant international bodies of their duty and responsibility to take urgent and decisive action in response to this breach of international law.
Silence in the face of such blatant aggression will plunge the world into an unprecedented level of danger and chaos. Humanity has come too far as suspicious to allow a lawless bully to take us back to the law of the jungle. The Islamic Republic of Iran calls on the Security Council to convene an emergency session to unequivocally condemn the criminal act of aggression by the United States against Iran and to hold the administration in Washington accountable for its violations of fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter and of norms of international law.
The responsibility of the IAEA and its Director General, who, through evidence by us in favor of warmongering parties, paved the way for the current violence and bloodshed is now clearer than ever. We call on the IAEA Board of Governors to immediately convene and carry out its legal responsibility in response to the dangerous U.S. attack on Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities, all of which have been under the agency's full safeguards and monitoring.
[05:30:19]
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. Not content with such malign actions, the United States itself has now also opted for a dangerous military operation and aggression against the people of Iran. In doing so, the U.S. administration holds sole and full responsibility for the consequences of its actions, including the Islamic Republic of Iran's right to self-defense under the principles of the United Charter. In accordance with the U.N. Charter and its provisions allowing a legitimate response in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its security interests and people.
Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will now be taking questions. We'd like to start with the "Associated Press."
(OFF MIC)
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Negotiations still open.
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No translation.
ANDERSON: Well, we've been speaking to the -- we've been speaking to -- we've listening to the Iranian Foreign Minister speaking in Istanbul. He condemned America's, quote, "brutal military aggression" against what he describes as Iran's "peaceful nuclear facilities."
Washington, he said, is fully responsible for the consequences of its actions, speaking to the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities by the U.S. overnight. And he described as those strikes betraying not only Iran, but also deceiving Donald Trump's own voters by pandering to the wishes of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel and America, he said, have betrayed and destroyed diplomacy. And he's been calling on the U.N. Security Council to convene an emergency meeting on the issue.
We're still joined by Christiane Amanpour. And Christiane, we are still continuing to monitor what is the question-and-answer session with reporters in Istanbul. But just to consider what was just said by the Iranian Foreign Minister, what did you make of what we've just heard?
AMANPOUR: Well, it was a very strong reaction. It was very deliberate. It was couched in all sorts of international language regarding the, as he said, violating the U.N. charter, hitting a sovereign and independent nation for no reason, especially, he said, when they thought they were in the midst, in his words, of an idea, i.e. negotiations that existed for a peaceful settlement of this question.
And that was, you know, obviously what I talked about before, that there had been five rounds of negotiations. Steve Witkoff, President Trump's Special Envoy, had tried. And -- and, you know, they all thought, at least the Iranians told me, and some Americans seem to suggest, that things were moving in the right direction when this all kicked off last Friday, when Israel started to attack just before the sixth round of talks.
And now, you know, with this idea that they were going to have some kind of talks in Europe, that was ongoing, apparently. The Iranians said they wanted to keep talking. And then the B-2s were deployed.
So, the issue here is, when you try to ask for diplomacy, like the U.S., I think, has had, Iran must now make peace, Iran must come to the table. Iran must, I assume, is saying, give up its nuclear enrichment. How does a party trust that?
[05:35:17]
Because remember, this is what the Iranians are now saying, that we have been deceived. We have thought that there was a peaceful way to resolve all our issues. And that this suddenly came to a head. They told us now, in retrospect, that we had 60 days. You remember the famous 60 days, and then on the 61st day, Israel struck and Trump, you know, sort of bolstered that. We didn't have that deadline in our mind. Negotiations go on for a long time.
All of that now is almost irrelevant, because this has now come to a massive military head. So, the question remains, does this get resolved, quote unquote, "by a continuation of military strikes," or is there some kind of negotiated off-ramp that the Iranians will agree to come to? And if so, what are the parameters of that?
There's not a huge amount of leverage that they have right now, except if these nuclear facilities are not completely obliterated, in Trump's words, then they presumably, as they have done in the past, are able to reconstitute. You know, there's been years and years of Israeli sabotage, as much as it's been able to do of Natanz and, you know, assassinating the scientists and all of that.
And each time, they've just continued. So, that is the question. And the other question is, what is America's view and what is Israel's view about regime change? Israel's view, we know, because they've telegraphed it, they want regime change. Trump, apparently, according to sources who told CBS News, telegraphed to the Iranians before the B-2s dropped their massive bombs that this was not about a change of leadership, this was not about regime change, and indicated, again, according to those sources reported by our colleagues at CBS News, that this was, in that horrible expression, one and done. We'll see.
Again, more questions than answers. But the Iranian Foreign Minister was very, very strong in his condemnation. And let me just say a few -- a few -- a few words that, you know, condemns in the strongest terms this attack against Iran's, quote, "peaceful nuclear program." It's outrageous and a fundamental breach with international law. He called the administration warmongering and lawless administration in D.C., solely and fully responsible for the far-reaching consequences.
We will never compromise over our independence and our sovereignty, and we will defend by all means necessary. And then he tried to appeal to American politics. The president of the U.S. was elected on a platform of putting an end to the forever wars that the -- you know, the U.S. has been conducting, as he said, in our part of the world. He said Trump has not only betrayed Iran in terms of diplomacy, but
has also deceived his own voters. And then he added, because, again, this goes to the heart of what the Arab countries are concerned about, too, and that's Israel. He has -- Araghchi is saying about Trump, he has acceded to the wishes of a wanted war criminal who has grown accustomed to, you know, getting the United States to accede in its policies in our region.
And he said, the bully, and he's talking about Israel and the U.S., maybe just the U.S., takes us back to the law of the jungle. So, when I talked about the Arab countries and Israel, it would be much more easy for the Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, et cetera, to be more supportive of Israel if Israel wasn't at the same time conducting a war in Gaza, which is slaughtering thousands, tens of thousands of people, including women and children, and has put forth no plan that could satisfy Arab neighbors like Saudi Arabia, which would, you know, presumably agree to a normalization, no plan to end this war and give any kind of endgame that would show that they are willing to entertain the pathway to pulling out of Gaza and for there to be an eventual Palestinian state.
This is the key, you know, sticking point between Israel and the neighbors in the Persian Gulf region. So, this is the situation we're in. We've just heard from Araghchi and we wait to see what happens next.
ANDERSON: And we're just listening in while you've been speaking to the Iranian Foreign Minister at the same time, describing as the bombing overnight by the Americans is not just on the facilities in Natanz, Isfahan, and in Fordow, but also the bombing of the U.N. charter.
[05:40:11]
So, once again, you know, framing this in sort of, you know, international multilateral sort of language is an effort by the Iranian foreign minister today.
Let's just listen in to a little bit more of what he is saying here.
ARAGHCHI: Of such a clear threat against the United Nations Charter, Iran has done nothing wrong. We do not understand why Iran should be attacked for a false accusation that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons. It's now more than 20 years that we are trying to prove that our peaceful nuclear program is in fact peaceful and would remain peaceful.
We negotiated for a long time with the so-called P5-plus-1, and we came to a deal which the whole world celebrated as an achievement of diplomacy. And then it was the U.S. who withdrew from that deal and reimposed their sanctions and restarted their threats. Again, we were negotiating with the same administration. Then, all of a sudden, they decided to attack us, first by Israelis, then by themselves. And now they are threatening us for more attacks.
So, it's not up to Iran, but it's up to international community to condemn this, to prevent this. Otherwise, there would be nothing left for the international law, for the security at the world level. The Security Council should play its role, should play its responsibility to prevent -- to condemn and prevent these kinds of threats.
We will certainly defend our interests. We will certainly defend our territorial integrity, our sovereignty, and our people. And I'm so glad that our people are now fully understand what injustice they are doing against the Iranian people. They are united and in solidarity with the government, and we stand firm against any aggression.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Next, CNN Turk.
ANDERSON: Right. Let me just bring back Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Chief International Anchor, live in London, listening in to the Iranian Foreign Minister. Your thoughts?
AMANPOUR: Well, he said -- he spoke of truism, that the JCPOA, the nuclear deal of 2015, was celebrated as a success for diplomacy. It was an arms control agreement, not a peace agreement. It was an arms control agreement against Iran's most dangerous capacity, as the world saw it.
Trump pulled the United States out of that in 2018, egged on and lobbied by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some allies in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. That is what precipitated then Iran to keep enriching and showing its capability. The maximum pressure that Trump put Iran under did not work in terms of coming to a better deal. Trump was unable to do that.
Now, they wanted to get back in Trump 2.0 to seeing whether they could be a deal. It's really important to understand from their perspective, I'm telling you what they tell me all the time, that we went into a negotiated deal, it was a successful diplomatic deal with all its, you know, all its weaknesses and exit clauses and stuff like that.
But Iran was considered by the IAEA and the U.S. to have held up its side of the bargain. It kept to its side of the bargain under that deal until Trump pulled out. Yeah, and then there was a lobbying effort to destroy successful diplomacy, if I could put it that way, to make a successful diplomatic deal fail.
And that's what's happened. And now we're at this massive crisis point as Iran has continued to enrich. And Israel has thought that this is the moment to do what it's always wanted to do and try to eliminate a threat. And Trump is on board. And so trying to get them back, even while Iran is weak, is going to be interesting and creative diplomacy.
ANDERSON: Well, Donald Trump certainly leaving the door open to that in his outward statements. And we will see at this point. Christiane, thank you. Christiane Amanpour, CNN's Chief International Anchor, live in London.
[05:45:10]
Joining me now live from New York is Amir Handjani. He's a fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. You have suggested that Tehran faces a number of key decisions at this point. Can you just explain what those are? Just lay those out for me in the context of what we've just heard, of course, from the Iranian foreign minister.
AMIR HANDJANI, FELLOW, QUINCY INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: Well, first, it's nice to be with you, Becky. The first key decision Iran faces is whether it is going to stay in the NPT regime, the Non- Proliferation Treaty. They're a signatory of the NPT, which enables them to have a nuclear program for peaceful energy purposes and puts them in an inspection regime of the IAEA.
Given what's happened over the last eight days, they have started to make moves to exit that regime, exit the NPT. Once Iran exits the NPT, IAEA inspectors will be thrown out of the country or won't be allowed back in the country. So, Iran's nuclear program will go dark. There won't be eyes on the ground.
ANDERSON: That would be a big deal were they to pull out. Yeah.
HANDJANI: It would be a big deal, but it would not be unexpected given what's happened just now. Iran has been attacked by not one, but two nuclear powers, two nuclear weapon states. Iran is not a nuclear weapon state. There's been a lot of questions, a lot of concerns about Iran's nuclear program. But the assessment of the IAEA was that they saw no evidence that Iran was producing nuclear weapons. And that's the assessment of --
ANDERSON: Amir, of course, yeah --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: -- yeah. And Amir, you know, we've just been listening to the Foreign Minister talking about a peaceful nuclear program. Of course, the hawks will say, why is it then that Iran has enriched uranium to just short of what you would need for a bomb? And despite there not being sufficient evidence, many say, to have carried out these -- these strikes, the Israelis are certainly convinced that the Iranians are only a month away. And so is President Trump himself, because he said as much.
Look, I wonder, to your mind, because we're talking about key decisions that the Iranians must make at this point. What about U.S. bases in this region of the Gulf? Are they at risk at this point?
HANDJANI: I think nominally they are at risk. I think that would be a catastrophic decision for Iran to attack U.S. bases in the Gulf states. And unwise and wouldn't -- they wouldn't get anything from it other than massive retaliation from the United States and also would tear apart what you mentioned in your previous segment with Christiane, which is over the last couple of years, there's been a rapprochement with the Gulf states and Iran.
They've made numerous diplomatic overtures. They're -- they're trying to make economic overtures and give Iran a stake in the prosperity of the region. So, any -- any attack by Iran in the Gulf states that house U.S. military facilities would be catastrophic, not just militarily for Iran, but diplomatically for Iran, too, because its neighbors would resent them even more.
ANDERSON: You've also talked about the Ayatollah Khamenei's fatwa prohibiting nuclear weapons, and you've suggested that will either be rescinded or expire when he passes. The next generation of leadership, you say, will remember this war.
Look, what do you know about the leadership at this point very briefly? And, you know, are they at this point determined that a weapon will be in their interests?
HANDJANI: Well, I think a lot of the leadership has had a lot of turnover over last week, as you know. An older cadre was running Iran that very much had the memory of the Iran-Iraq war and had served during the Iran-Iraq war.
Now, this new generation is going to have to contend with an Iranian domestic audience that is enraged, that is very nationalistic, that feels that in many ways they didn't protect the country and, you know, they're now asking themselves this question, why don't we have a nuclear weapon?
We need a nuclear weapon to deter countries like Israel and the United States from attacking us. And only -- the events of the last week only give rise to that sentiment.
[05:50:08]
So, if they don't have -- if the Iranian leadership doesn't have answers for its people on this issue, they're going to lose legitimacy in front of their people.
ANDERSON: Amir, it's good to have you. We're short of time today because we were listening to the Iranian Foreign Minister in Istanbul. That was important. Great to have you on. Thank you very much indeed. You and I will speak again in the days to come.
Joining me from Washington just before we close out this hour is David Albright, President and Founder of the Institute for Science and International Security.
David, cooperated with the IAEA Action Team from 92 until 97. He was the first non-governmental inspector of the Iraq nuclear program.
So David, it's good to have you. I just want to firstly get your reaction to the U.S. strikes and the response from the Iranians that we've just heard this hour.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER, INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY: Well, it's littered with lies. I mean, it's like a murderer standing in the court of justice saying he didn't do it. And all the evidence says that he did. I mean, the IAEA systematically, over 20 years, has been struggling with Iran to tell the truth about its past and possibly ongoing and we think now pretty surely ongoing efforts to build or prepare to build a nuclear weapon. And they've categorically refused. That led the board of governors of the IAEA to pass a resolution that Iran is in violation of its safeguards agreement under the NPT.
Iran's reaction was, well, we deny it all. And by the way, we're building a third secret enrichment plant and we're coming close to putting more centrifuges in. And so, what you have in the case of Iran, it's just the Iranian regime. And I don't think it's that popular in Iran. I think it's mistaken to think there's a nationalist upsurge to get nuclear weapons. I think people in Iran are in shock.
But I think what you have is a regime that has refused for 20 years and it didn't come into compliance with the IAEA during the JCPOA either. So, I think they've created a situation itself --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: And there is a question to whether they will stay in the NPT. Yeah, there's -- and there are questions being asked as to whether they will pull out the NPT at this point, which would leave, of course, no monitoring, no eyes on the ground for the international community. You've been monitoring the damage --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Hold on, we've been monitoring --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Yeah. Well, OK, fair enough. Yeah, you make a good point. You've been monitoring the damage that we've seen so far on these nuclear facilities. We don't know the impact of this U.S. bunker bomb or bunker bombs as of yet. We've seen the video of smoke rising from Fordow. What have you observed about this? What do you believe the extent of the damage has been?
ALBRIGHT: We've ordered images of post-strike images of Fordow, but we don't have them in hand yet. And the Iranians typically come out and say little damage. I mean, they said that about Natanz, too. They said superficial damage. And then you look at images of Natanz, it's a different story. So, I think the initial reports from Iran should be dismissed.
But we'll just have to wait. One would expect that there'll be severe damage along the tunnel entrances. I would imagine they would have gone after the ventilation shaft, which also provides a kind of a way down into the underground enrichment halls.
They may have just decided to bore straight down and try to drop the roof of the centrifuge hall. And so we'll have to wait and see. And I'm sure the U.S. will be releasing some information soon, too. And -- but I want to point out there's another site, from what I understand -- yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Can I just ask, because I'm running out of time, should people be reassured about the radiation levels by statements out of Saudi Arabia and the IAEA today, saying no risks at this point? ALBRIGHT: Yes. No. Yeah. No, I think there's probably no risk to an off-site population. I mean, if you happen to get into these sites, it's a problem. But also to add, the Esfahan site, from the reporting so far, is they were attacking some tunnels, tunnel complex near Esfahan, which is associated with the nuclear site, where they typically store enriched uranium.
And so, the U.S. looks like it was trying to take out stocks of this 60 and 20% enriched uranium. So, I think that's something to pay close attention to, too. And Natanz, from some of the initial reporting, is they just wanted to make sure they knew what was destroyed, the underground halls. So, again, that's a little less confirmed, but we should find out soon.
[05:55:06]
ANDERSON: Important insights.
(CROSSTALK)
ALBRIGHT: Yeah. I think one thing, what you're seeing now is part of the international community that is fed up with Iran violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As a cheater, it's not allowed to withdraw from the NPT. That's international law. So, they can't withdraw. And so even if they pretend to, they're still a violator and action can be taken against them.
ANDERSON: David Albright, your insight is extremely valuable as we continue to report the very latest on this breaking news. David, thank you.
We've been following breaking news in the Middle East. Iran's official state news agency says this video shows smoke rising from the Fordow nuclear facility. That's where American B-2 bombers dropped bunker buster bombs. The U.S. struck a total of three Iranian nuclear sites a short time ago. We brought you the Iranian Foreign Minister's comments live. He said the United States betrayed diplomacy by striking Iran.
And in Israel, social media video shows damage in Tel Aviv after Iran targeted the country with a wave of missiles. Israel's Ministry of Health says 86 people were admitted to hospital with injuries. Israeli emergency services say there is large-scale destruction in parts of the country. And CNN on the ground do stay with us for our continuing coverage.
That wraps this hour, though, of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Becky Anderson. Thank you for joining us.
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