Iranian minister says Trump’s Tehran accusations are ‘pure deception’
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(LONDON) — Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reacted to President Donald Trump’s remarks about Iran, calling them “pure deception.”
Trump described Tehran as the “most destructive force” in the region during a speech on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and accused Iranian leaders of being “focused on stealing their people’s wealth” to fund regional proxies.
“It is America that has prevented the progress of the Iranian nation through its sanctions over the past forty-odd years, with its own pressures and military and civilian threats; the one responsible for the economic problems is America,” Araghchi said to the press on the sidelines of the government board meeting, as the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
Trump’s criticisms of the Islamic Republic came a few days after the fourth round of Iran-U.S. nuclear talks in Muscat, which Tehran described as “difficult but useful.” Washington said was “encouraged” by its outcome.
“The fact that Trump is applying maximum pressure in this very meeting and then addressing Iran’s economic problems is not entirely correct,” the Iranian foreign minister said.
Addressing Trump’s comments on Iran’s regional presence, Araghchi reiterated Tehran’s position that Israel is the source of threat in the region with the strikes and killing in the Gaza Strip, where the Israel Defense Forces say that they are fighting Hamas militants.
America presenting “Iran as a threat is pure deception and a substitution of threats,” Araghchi said.
Iranian foreign minister said that Iran is waiting for Omani authorities to announce the time and place of the next round of negotiations, saying Tehran’s approach is to pursue dialogue.
Palestinians conduct search and rescue operations in the rubble of destroyed buildings following an Israeli attack on the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City on the second day of Eid al-Adha in Gaza on June 07, 2025. (Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Talking with ABC News for his first-ever interview, the new executive chairman of the controversial United States-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) discussed dozens of people being killed near the aid distribution centers and one of the sites being shut down within 10 days of opening.
Reverend Dr. Johnnie Moore — who has twice been appointed by President Donald Trump as a commissioner on the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom — said the organization “can’t control what happens outside” the distribution points and added that there have been incidents, “as one would expect, in a war, outside of our distribution sites.”
Israel Defense Forces said that its troops opened fire on both Sunday and Tuesday of this week in areas near GHF aid distribution sites in Gaza, stating it has fired shots “towards” people but not at them. The IDF said “suspects” had deviated from specific routes towards the aid hub.
According to Moore, “some” deaths in one of the incidents did “come from the IDF” although he also blamed “some” of the deaths on Hamas.
At least 57 people were killed and nearly 300 injured, health officials said, between Sunday and Tuesday’s shootings, leading GHF to pause its distribution for 24 hours.
When asked if GHF’s aid plan was part of the problem, given that desperate, hungry people had been killed on their way to pick up food, Moore answered, “No, I think that’s a quite cynical point of view.”
“I fundamentally disagree with the premise that our operation is somehow disproportionately imperiling people,” he said.
According to Moore, GHF — since it was set up 10 days ago — had distributed “10 million meals to Gazans, to thousands and thousands and thousands of people.”
The population of Gaza is around 2.2 million.
Addressing the two incidents, Moore said, “Somehow people veered off the secure corridor,” and referred to the deaths as “a tragedy.”
In the wake of such deadly incidents, GHF has since closed its distribution centers. Moore said his organization was “working with others” to make such incidents “less likely to happen” in the future.
“I’m not doing this for anybody to die,” GHF’s executive chairman said.
Moore pushed back on the implication that the new aid plan, which was set up at the behest of Israel to counter the alleged looting of aid by Hamas, had been mismanaged.
Moore confirmed that Gazans arriving at the aid distribution points didn’t need to show any form of ID to get access to aid. When asked by ABC News how he could be sure that Hamas would not profit from aid distributed under his plan, he said there was “no evidence” any of their aid had been seized.
The GHF executive said his organization was “very much solving the problem” and, over time, GHF would “put more energy on verification.”
International aid agencies have refused to participate in GHF’s aid distribution operation, stating that it breaches fundamental humanitarian principles, such as the notion that aid should always be distributed at the point of need.
The GHF operation has been accused by multiple U.N. organizations of forcing people to have to travel long distances through a perilous war zone to reach the distribution points, which are located in tightly restricted areas. The most vulnerable people in Gaza would appear to be the least likely to be able to access the aid.
Moore rejected that premise and said, “over time” he believed they would be able to get aid to the most vulnerable people.
International aid agencies have also accused GHF’s aid distribution operation of being part of Israel’s military strategy, which Moore said was “simply not true.”
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This militarized system endangers lives and violates international standards on aid distribution, as the United Nations has repeatedly warned,” Turk’s statement continued.
Moore said GHF was communicating with the IDF to “manage” the “secure corridors,” but he described GHF as an “American organization” with “American contractors.”
When asked if Israel was funding the organization, at least to some extent, he refused to comment.
“There’s certain things that we’re not gonna talk about or focus on now,” Moore told ABC News.
GHF has been mired in controversy from the beginning, and it lost Executive Director Jake Wood, a U.S. military veteran, who resigned just before the aid plan launched nearly two weeks ago. Wood cited concerns over the group’s impartiality.
In an interview days before his resignation, Wood had suggested on CNN that GHF would only be able to scale up its operation to the necessary level to cater for Gaza’s population if major aid agencies were to join the operation, something they have all refused to do.
As a new executive, Moore said he believed they could scale up the operation to the necessary degree, but said it was not their goal to do it without the cooperation of major aid agencies.
“I mean, they’re the ones who have said that they won’t work with us,” he added. “My message to them [international aid agencies] is like, stop criticizing us, just join us, and we can learn from them if people have better idea.”
As of Thursday, the aid sites were shut down and then briefly re-opened and then closed again at two sites in Rafah, Gaza, GHF said. The GHF says that some sites have been reopened on Saturday but it is currently unclear how much aid is being distributed.
Moore said the ultimate aim was to have significantly more than eight distribution centers and said he thought that “big organizations” would eventually cooperate with GHF.
(LONDON) — Students shut out of U.S. universities by President Donald Trump’s administration should instead come to the U.K., London Mayor Sadiq Khan told an event on Monday, as he criticized governments that engage in “narrow” and damaging nationalism.
Lauding London as a “beacon of hope, progress and possibility,” Khan told attendees at the Concordia Europe Summit that the city will push back against movements “towards closed societies and countries that want to cut themselves off from the world, abdicate their responsibilities under the rule-based global order and stoke a narrow form of nationalism that divides their populations into insiders and outsiders.”
“To pick one country entirely at random, I’ve got to say we’re delighted that record numbers of Americans are applying for British citizenship or to live and work here, and that many are choosing to settle in London,” Khan continued.
“Our city will always offer newcomers a warm welcome,” the mayor said. “The same goes for any overseas students considering where to head next. If the U.S. is closed to you, we’ll make sure that London is open, because we value and celebrate the contribution foreign students made to our society, our economy and our culture.”
Those governments seeking to “put the brakes on globalization or unwind it as much as they can to their perceived advantage,” are engaging in “an entirely self-defeating exercise that will do immense damage to your own economy and those of your allies and trade partners,” Khan said.
Khan — a prominent member of the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party — did not explicitly mention the Trump administration in his address. The two men have repeatedly criticized each other in the past.
When Khan was running for mayor of London in 2015, he said Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S. was “outrageous.” Khan, who is from British Pakistani background, later said he hoped Trump would “lose badly” in the 2016 presidential election. During Trump’s first term, Khan lobbied the British government to cancel the president’s 2017 state visit.
Trump has characterized Khan’s criticism as “very nasty,” accused the three-term mayor of doing a “terrible job” and dismissed him as a “stone cold loser.”
European nations are mobilizing to attract students and researchers blocked from their work in the U.S., as the Trump administration seeks to curtail funding for U.S. institutions linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The Trump administration is also targeting universities it accuses of doing too little to suppress pro-Palestinians protests against Israel’s war in Gaza — protests the White House has broadly characterized as antisemitic.
The European Union last month launched a $566 million plan for 2025-2027 “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.” The U.K., meanwhile, is preparing its own $67 million plan to attract foreign researchers.
Khan on Monday addressed those who are “no longer comfortable with their political climate” to “come to London, because we’re ready to roll out the red carpet to business leaders, tech entrepreneurs, high net-worth individuals, creatives, students, whoever it may be.”
“If you value certainty and stability, freedom and democracy, pluralism and mutual respect, then London is the place to be,” the mayor said.
(LONDON) — Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Wednesday that “a whole series of nuances” needs to be addressed before Russia will agree to any U.S.-brokered peace deal to end Moscow’s 3-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking with journalists, Peskov appeared to downplay hopes of a quick peace agreement — which President Donald Trump said this weekend he wants to secure within two weeks.
President Vladimir Putin, Peskov said, “said that he supports this initiative — the establishment of a ceasefire, he supports it, but before going for it, a whole series of questions need to be answered and a whole series of nuances need to be resolved,” as quoted by the state-run Tass news agency.
Peskov was responding to suggestions — including from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — that Putin is not genuine about his professed desire to agree a peace deal.
Zelenskyy again urged greater international pressure on the Kremlin on Wednesday, citing the latest round of drone strikes in which 45 people were injured in Kharkiv — including two children — and one person was killed in Dnipro.
“Russian drones continue flying over Ukrainian skies all morning,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. “And this happens every single day. That’s why pressure on Russia is needed — strong, additional sanctions that actually work. Not just words or attempts at persuasion — only pressure can force Russia to agree to a ceasefire and end the war.”
“Pressure from the United States, Europe and everyone in the world who believes war has no place on Earth,” the president wrote.
Zelenskyy said that more than 100 Russian attack drones were launched at Ukrainian targets overnight into Wednesday, with a total of 375 drones launched so far this week.
Ukraine’s air force said its forces shot down 50 of the 108 drones launched, with another 22 lost in flight without causing damage.
Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its forces downed 35 Ukrainian drones overnight into Wednesday morning.
ABC News Guy Davies and Oleksiy Pshemyskiy contributed to this report.
