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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Thursday that US President Donald Trump exaggerated the destruction caused by US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
'Anyone who heard his remarks could sense that behind those words lay a very different truth,' Khamenei said, in his first televised speech since the Iran-Israel ceasefire took hold. 'They failed to achieve their objectives, and they inflated their claims to conceal the reality.'
Khamenei's comments followed Sunday's military operation by the US that targeted Iran's main nuclear sites – including Fordow, which houses the country's most advanced centrifuges – amid a dramatic escalation in hostilities between Israel and Iran. The escalation began on June 13 when Israel carried out surprise airstrikes against Iran's nuclear and military sites, killing many commanders and nuclear scientists.
A ceasefire was brokered by Washington on Tuesday.
Khamenei further said that Iran 'dealt a severe slap' to the US and emerged victorious in the war, adding that America entered to save Israel from 'complete destruction.'
'I want to congratulate the great Iranian nation … for its victory over the fallacious Zionist regime,' he continued, stressing that the US 'has gained nothing from this war.'
Khamenei's remarks came despite US officials asserting that the strikes destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities, with Trump saying the attack 'obliterated' the nuclear sites.
In a press briefing following Khamenei's speech, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that 'Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed,' calling the American military mission 'historic.'
He further lauded the mission as 'the most complex and secretive military operation in history.'
'What they accomplished is truly historic, and set back the Iranian nuclear program untold number of years,' Hegseth stressed.
The Fordow facility, located in a mountainous area near Qom, has long been considered a key element of Iran's uranium enrichment efforts. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but Western powers and Israel have accused Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon - an allegation Iran denies.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), previously reported Iran holds hundreds of kilograms of uranium enriched up to 60 percent, which could be brought up to weapons-grade quality. Iranian officials now claim much of their stock was secretly moved to an undisclosed site days before the US strikes, raising further concerns.
Iran's parliament on Wednesday approved a bill to suspend the country's cooperation with the IAEA. The bill bars IAEA inspectors from entering Iran unless the security of the country's nuclear facilities and its peaceful nuclear activities is guaranteed.
On Thursday, the powerful Guardian Council approved the parliament's bill.
At least 627 civilians have been killed by the Israeli strikes in Iran, according to Tehran's health ministry, and 28 people have been killed in Iran's retaliatory attacks, according to official Israeli figures.
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