Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has issued a diplomatic warning to Bulgaria over reports that the country is preparing to host US military aircraft, while simultaneously securing assurances from Cyprus that foreign bases on its territory will not be used for hostile actions against the Islamic Republic.

In a telephone conversation with Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ventsislava Petrova on Thursday, Araghchi firmly condemned Sofia’s reported agreement to allow the United States to station military aircraft at the Bezmer air base.

Tehran views the move as a direct contribution to US military posturing and tension-building in West Asia.

“Allowing the territory of one state to be used by another state for the purpose of committing an act of aggression against a third state constitutes an act of aggression itself,” Araghchi stated, citing Article 3 of UN General Assembly Resolution 3314, which defines acts of aggression under international law.

The Iranian foreign minister emphasized that such a decision is unacceptable and contradicts the traditional friendly relations between the two nations, urging the Bulgarian government to urgently reconsider its stance.

He reiterated that the Islamic Republic will not hesitate to defend its national security and interests, warning that “any party that participates in any way in a military attack against Iran must bear responsibility for its consequences.”

In response, the Bulgarian foreign ninister recalled the historically good relations between the two countries, asserting that Bulgaria has no intention of participating in any war and reaffirming its commitment to diplomacy and regional de-escalation.

Securing neutrality in Cyprus

In a separate diplomatic push, Minister Araghchi spoke with Cypriot Foreign Minister Konstantinos Kombos, stressing the critical importance of preventing hostile forces from misusing foreign military bases stationed in Cyprus to target Iran.

The Cypriot foreign minister affirmed his country’s commitment to the principles of international law and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Kombos announced that Cyprus has been in direct contact with the UK government and has received explicit assurances that the foreign military bases on the island will not be used against any country, including the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The diplomatic warnings come amid reports that the Bulgarian government is seeking parliamentary approval to station up to eight US aerial refueling tanker aircraft at the Bezmer military facility, located southeast of Sofia.

Public opposition to the US aggression against Iran is growing across the United States, with a new poll showing rising dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump’s handling of the war.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey, conducted between July 23 and July 27, found that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the war against Iran has not been worth fighting.

Only about two in 10 Americans support continuing the war against Iran. By comparison, about three in 10 favor pausing the aggression to pursue negotiations, while another two in 10 want the war to end altogether.

Even among Trump’s supporters, backing for the war was limited. The survey found that only about half favored continuing the war, while roughly three in 10 supported either a ceasefire or an immediate halt to US military aggression.

The poll also showed Trump’s approval rating for his handling of the Iran war falling to 28 percent down from 34 percent last month, while his overall job approval stood at 33 percent.

The backlash has extended to Trump’s political base, with Republican approval of his handling of the war dropping from 71 percent in June to 61 percent, signaling growing discontent over the military campaign.

Economic concerns also emerged as a major source of public dissatisfaction, with about 72 percent of respondents saying preventing further increases in domestic oil and gasoline prices is an extremely or very important priority.

About four in 10 Americans said gasoline prices have become a major source of financial stress in their daily lives, up from about three in 10 when the war began earlier this year.

The survey also found broad public support for diplomacy, with about 7 in 10 Americans saying securing a permanent ceasefire with Iran is an extremely or very important priority.

The latest round of aggression against Iran began on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched large-scale strikes on Iranian territory.

Iran responded with daily waves of missile and drone attacks targeting US and Israeli assets across the region, while also restricting traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran and the United States later signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on June 17 in an effort to end the war across all fronts.

However, renewed US military aggression in recent weeks has prompted Tehran to resume missile and drone strikes against US assets in the region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House Tuesday for his first in-person talks with President Donald Trump since the Iran war began, with the Israeli leader saying they discussed ensuring Tehran does not acquire nuclear arms.

The closed-door talks — which the White House described as “positive and productive” — lasted for about an hour and a half and came as Netanyahu and Trump sought to patch over public disagreements on the war.

Netanyahu said in a video message after the meeting that it was “one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with the president of the United States” and that it touched on “our common goal: ensuring that Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons.”

The Iran war began in late February with US-Israeli strikes but has seen a recent pause in the fighting, with Washington saying it wants to give negotiations a chance.

Israel has not taken part in the latest round of hostilities between the United States and Iran, which flared earlier this month as an April ceasefire collapsed.

The meeting was the eighth between the two leaders since Trump’s return to office in early 2025 and came ahead of key electoral tests later this year for both Netanyahu and the US president: national elections in Israel and midterm polls in the United States.

Netanyahu’s office said he attended a private memorial dinner in Washington on Monday evening in honor of the late senator Lindsey Graham.

He also went to a memorial service for Graham after the meeting with Trump on Tuesday.

Relations between Trump and Netanyahu reached a low point in April during negotiations on the ceasefire with Iran, with Trump unleashing profanity-laced tirades against his Israeli ally.

Trump later described Netanyahu in an interview as a “very difficult guy.”

Netanyahu downplayed the exchanges as “tactical disagreements,” saying they were aligned on the goals of the war.

On Tuesday, the leaders were expected to discuss the implementation of a US-sponsored framework deal signed by Israel and Lebanon last month, whose application on the ground has been challenging.

The talks were also expected to touch on Gaza, as diplomatic efforts to kick-start the devastated Palestinian territory’s reconstruction are at a standstill.

Nearly three years after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, and Israel continues to regularly target people the military says are militants.

‘No break’ in ties

Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Tuesday that Netanyahu’s visit came at a “critical time for the Middle East,” with Iran continuing “to choose terrorism over negotiations” and blocking the key Strait of Hormuz waterway.

Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the primary aim of the visit was to dispel reports of a cooling in ties between the allies.

“I think that the main issue… is to show the world, to show Iran, and also even Lebanon and others… that there is no break or any kind of major disagreement between the United States and Israel,” he told AFP.

“There’s more in agreement between the two leaders than disagreement.”

For Freeman, any differences between Trump and Netanyahu concern the means — timeline, intensity, immediate objectives of operations — rather than the ends of the war.

He also suggested that Trump would mainly seek to focus on his two regional priorities, namely Iran and the expansion of the Abraham Accords, rather than on Gaza, which he sees as less of a priority.

The Abraham Accords are a series of US-brokered normalization agreements signed during Trump’s first term, under which Israel established formal diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for the first time. Morocco later followed.

But other observers believe that the talks could address the possible easing of Israel’s military presence in the region, such as in Lebanon, Syria or Gaza.

Source: AFP

Member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have voted to remove Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan from office, a move protested by his lawyer to have been taken amid “immense political pressure.”

The vote was held during a special session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Friday.

According to diplomatic sources, 82 of the court’s 125 member states voted by “secret ballot” on Friday in favor of his dismissal, surpassing the 63 votes required for an absolute majority. Thirteen states voted against the motion, while 15 abstained.

ASP President Paivi Kaukoranta announced that member states had concluded Khan “committed serious misconduct and a serious breach of duty” by engaging in “prohibited conduct against a subordinate staff member.”

The decision takes immediate effect and marks the first time in the ICC’s 24-year history that a sitting chief prosecutor has been removed by member states. Elections for a successor will follow.

Khan’s lawyer, Tayab Ali, condemned the decision, saying it ignored due process concerns raised by more than 180 rights groups and legal experts.

“The decision is unsupported by any lawful or properly reasoned finding that Mr Khan KC committed misconduct or breached his duties as Prosecutor,” he said, adding that Khan “was never given a fair opportunity to be heard.” Ali also warned that “the Prosecutor of this Court has been removed by an executive vote while under sanctions and while the Court is under immense political pressure.”

The vote centered on findings by the ASP Bureau that “the evidence establishes beyond reasonable doubt” that Khan engaged in a “sexual relationship” with a subordinate staff member, arguing that “in the context of that power imbalance a sexual relationship could never be appropriate.”

Khan denied any sexual relationship, while the complainant’s account, investigated by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), alleged non-consensual conduct.

The decision comes amid heightened political pressure on the court. It followed threats by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Washington would “dismantle the ICC – brick by brick, if necessary,” while many ICC officials, including Khan, remain under US sanctions related to investigations into Palestine and Afghanistan.

The disciplinary process also followed Khan’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes committed during Tel Aviv’s war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

The process drew criticism after a panel of judges reportedly concluded that the evidence “do[es] not establish misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant framework,” but the ASP Bureau proceeded with disciplinary measures.

More than 180 Palestinian civil society organizations and rights groups argued the process “has been reduced to a political referendum following the national interests of individual States Parties.”

Iran’s Army has targeted two key US bases in Bahrain and Jordan in response to deadly American aerial assaults on the Islamic Republic.

The Army’s Public Relations Department said on Friday that the attacks, launched under the 24th phase of Operation Saeqe (Lightning), involved launching Arash kamikaze drones at fuel storage facilities, large equipment warehouses and sheds, and the accommodation quarters of the terrorist US military personnel at Shaikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain.

Iranian drones, it added, also hit aircraft shelters, aircraft maintenance hangars, and accommodation facilities for forces of the aggressor US army at Jordan’s al-Azraq Air Base.

“Any action against the legitimate and lawful interests of the Iranian nation and the sacred Islamic Republic establishment will also jeopardize the security and economic interests of other countries in the region,” it asserted.

For thirteen consecutive nights, the US military has conducted waves of air raids on Iran, committing war crimes by targeting civilian sites.

In response, Iranian armed forces have launched heavy reprisal attacks against strategic American targets across West Asia.

The US attacks, which have mainly targeted southern Iranian provinces, have so far destroyed several infrastructure sites, such as bridges and water desalination plants, and killed 55 and injured 645 Iranians.

Source: Presstv

Iran’s Health Ministry says recent US airstrikes on the country have killed 53 people and injured 592 others, including women and children.

“From June 27 to 8:30 a.m. today (July 22), US airstrikes on our country left 592 injured and 53 martyrs,” Hossein Kermanpour, head of the Health Ministry’s Public Relations Center, said in a post on X on Wednesday.

Kermanpour said six women and three minors were among those killed, while 39 women and 23 minors were among the injured.

“So far, 535 people have been discharged [from hospital] after treatment, 36 are still hospitalized, and 21 people have been treated on site,” he added.

The US military has carried out waves of deadly strikes across southern Iran and reinstated an illegal blockade of Iranian ports in flagrant violation of a war-termination deal.

In response, Iranian armed forces have launched heavy reprisal attacks against strategic American targets across the region, declaring the Strait of Hormuz closed “until further notice” and at least until “the end of US interference in the region.”

The latest escalation comes after the US and Israel launched another round of aggression against Iran on February 28.

Iran swiftly retaliated by launching barrages of missiles and drones at the Israeli-occupied territories, as well as US bases and interests across the region.

Since then, the aggression has increasingly centered on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital maritime chokepoint through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies pass.

Source: Presstv

A third US soldier has died, this time in Iraq, during what US Central Command called the “controlled detonation” of a downed Iranian drone.

It brings the number of US soldiers killed in fighting to 17. This comes as the war in Iran expands following the fallout of a 60-day ceasefire in early July.

The risk of a wider war in the Middle East is growing after authorities in Bahrain and Kuwait said they intercepted missiles and drones launched from Iran.

Air raid sirens also sounded in Jordan’s capital, Amman, while Israel said it detected Iranian missiles targeting the coastal city of Aqaba.

The escalation comes after the US Embassy in Jordan urged American citizens, in a social media post, to avoid Aqaba’s airport and seaport because of a specific and credible threat.

By Isong Asu in London

Iran’s Armed Forces have announced new rounds of retaliatory operations against US military targets in the region featuring missile and drone strikes against facilities in Kuwait and Jordan following overnight US attacks on the Iranian coastline and southern cities.

The operations, which were carried out on Wednesday, were accompanied by a warning from the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) that, for now, Iran’s reprisal remains focused on US offensive infrastructure in the region, but additional phases will follow.

‘Crushing blow’

Announcing its latest reprisal, the IRGC said that, during the eighth wave of its retaliatory Operation Nasr- (Victory) 2, its Navy and Aerospace Force carried out a combined missile-and-drone operation in response to “the enemy’s attacks last night on locations along the country’s southern coastline and in southern cities.”

According to the Corps, the operation targeted the early-warning radar of the C-RAM system at Kuwait’s Ali al-Salem Airbase as well as “a gathering point of the criminal soldiers of the terrorist US army.”

The reprisal, the announcement asserted, dealt US forces “a crushing blow.”

Addressing the Kuwaiti people, the IRGC reminded that the United States was using the Arab nation’s territory to carry out unprovoked acts of aggression against Iran, urging the nation to “rid your country of the presence of these aggressors and, by fulfilling your Islamic duty, preserve your historical honor and dignity.”

Separately, the Army of the Islamic Republic said it had launched a drone strike against US military facilities in Jordan during the ninth phase of its retaliatory Operation Saeqeh (Lightning).

According to the Army’s statement, loitering munitions targeted the fixed radar site, communications systems, and fuel depots of the US military at al-Azraq Airbase in Jordan. The statement described al-Azraq as a deployment site for missile defense systems and “one of the most important strategic and command centers for US forces operating in the West Asia region.”

The Army said the strike was carried out in retaliation for enemy attacks on parts of Iran, including the Bampur Army garrison in Iranshahr in the south, which led to the martyrdom of seven non-commissioned officers and soldiers of the Army’s Ground Force.

It condemned the enemy’s “barbaric attacks” on military barracks in Iranshahr, saying such actions reflected the enemy’s “inhuman nature.” Stressing that the attacks “will never be erased from the pages of history,” the statement added that Army personnel “will not retreat in the slightest from the honorable duty of defending the Iranian nation and the Islamic homeland or avenging the blood of the beloved martyrs.”

IRGC warns of further retaliatory phases

Meanwhile, commenting on the latest developments, IRGC spokesperson Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi said the enemy should not expect to prolong the confrontation by turning it into a war of attrition.

“The enemy should not assume that it can sustain the current dynamics of the battlefield and turn the war into a war of attrition,” he wrote in a post on X.

“Iran’s operations are currently focused on destroying the US’s offensive infrastructure in the region. The next phases will then begin,” he added.

IRGC hunts down invading hostile drones

Separately, the IRGC announced that its air defense units had intercepted and shot down a US LUCAS unmanned aerial vehicle over the skies of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. According to the Corps, the drone was detected by the country’s integrated air defense network before being struck by a surface-to-air missile system.

In another statement, the IRGC also said one enemy MQ-9 drone was also intercepted and destroyed over the southern Iranian city of Andimeshk by an advanced air defense system of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force.

The United States has perpetrated numerous violations against Iranian territory since April 7, when US President Donald Trump announced a unilateral ceasefire in the latest bout of wholesale American-Israeli aggression targeting the Islamic Republic.

The violations continued even after Washington and Tehran signed a Pakistan-mediated memorandum of understanding last month, whose first clause clearly mandates cessation of aggression on all fronts.

The US has also been trying to help vessels evade the maritime route designated by the Islamic Republic for safe and legal passage through the Strait of Hormuz, by seeking to escort trespassing vessels through an illegal passageway.

Iran’s Armed Forces have staged uncompromising retaliation in the face of each instance of violation, including those in support of illegal vessel movement in the Strait of Hormuz.

Source: Presstv

The European Union (EU) has reaffirmed its support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), rejecting a renewed campaign by the administration of US President Donald Trump to undermine the Hague-based tribunal.

Speaking on Tuesday, European Commission spokesperson Anouar El Anouni said the bloc’s position on the ICC remained unchanged, stressing the EU’s commitment to the fight against impunity.

“We stand firm in our support for the International Criminal Court,” El Anouni said, highlighting the court’s role in prosecuting perpetrators of some of the world’s gravest crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

He said attempts to undermine the court were unacceptable.

“Attacks or threats against the court, its elected officials, personnel or those cooperating with the court are simply not acceptable,” El Anouni said.

Rejecting Washington’s argument that the ICC threatens national sovereignty, he said the court “does not target sovereign states, nor does it constitute a threat to their sovereignty.”

Instead, he added, the tribunal “exercises jurisdiction over individuals, perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community.”

European Commission spokesperson Siobhan McGarry also reaffirmed the bloc’s support for the court, saying the EU remained committed to safeguarding its independence and ensuring it could continue its work.

“The Commission continues to support the ICC’s work, including its investigations into war crimes and crimes against humanity, and we are already facilitating all appropriate measures, including diplomatic, legal and financial avenues that could help ensure the continuity of the ICC’s operations,” she said.

The remarks came a day after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a campaign to “systematically disable” the ICC, accusing the tribunal of interfering with US military and law enforcement operations and claiming it threatened American sovereignty.

In an accompanying opinion piece, Rubio said that the court endangered “every aspect of our political and legal system,” invoking scenarios in which US border patrol agents and elected leaders could be “dragged before an international court” and brought before international judges.

The State Department said the campaign would involve a “wide range of actions,” including efforts to pressure countries to withdraw from the ICC and increased scrutiny of governments that continue to support the court while receiving US assistance.

The ICC, established under the 1998 Rome Statute, investigates and prosecutes individuals accused of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression.

In November 2024, the UN-backed court issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former war minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The latest developments also come as more than 100 international law experts in the United States have warned that the US aggression against Iran could constitute war crimes under international law.

The experts expressed particular concern over strikes on schools, healthcare facilities and residential areas, including a late-February missile strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh all-girls elementary school in Iran.

Since Trump returned to office last year, his administration has steadily intensified pressure on the Hague-based court.

So far, the United States has imposed sanctions on 11 ICC officials, including the chief prosecutor and eight judges, leaving them facing travel bans, frozen access to financial services, and the suspension of accounts with major US technology companies.

Source: Presstv