TEHRAN, 02 Feb. - (ANA) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday warned that a regional conflict would be started should the US launch an attack on his country, Iranian state ?media reported.

 

Tension has increased between Washington and Tehran. The US has built up ?a heavy naval presence in the Middle East as President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened Iran with intervention unless it agreed to ‌nuclear deal talks and stopped killing protesters.

 

The US Navy now has six destroyers, one aircraft carrier and three ?combat ships in the region.

 

"The Americans should know if they start a war, this time it will be a regional war," Mr Khamenei said. "We are not the initiators and do not want to attack any country, but the Iranian nation will strike a strong blow against anyone who attacks and harasses them."

 

Mr Trump responded in Florida: "Of course he is going to say that. Hopefully we'll make a deal. If we don't make a deal, then we'll find out whether or not he was right."

 

Tehran has indicated that a diplomatic solution remains on the table, saying it is ready for "fair" negotiations that do not seek to curtail its defensive capabilities. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CNN that he was "confident" of reaching a deal, saying friendly countries in the region were brokering "fruitful" talks with the US.

 

The ?protests, which started in ‍late December over economic hardships, have become the most acute political ?challenge to the ‌Iranian government since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Tehran has repeatedly accused the US and Israel of inciting the protests.

 

They have now abated ?after suppression, with the official death toll from the unrest at ?3,117. The US-based group Human Rights Activists News Agency puts the toll far higher, saying in its latest update on Sunday that it had so far verified 6,713 deaths, most of them protesters.

 

Mr Khamenei compared the protests to a coup, saying the goal of the "sedition" was to attack the centres that govern the country, state media reported.

 

Senior US and Israeli military leaders held previously unreported talks at the Pentagon on Friday as tension with Iran continued to rise, according to two US officials.

 

They did not offer details about ?the closed-door discussions between Gen Dan Caine, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, the Israeli armed forces chief ‍of staff.

 

Also on Sunday, Iran said it would now consider the armies of EU countries ?that listed Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard ?Corps on the bloc's list of terrorist organisations as "terrorist groups" themselves.

 

The EU marked a symbolic shift in its approach to ?Iran's leadership on Thursday by listing the IRGC as terrorists after the crackdown on demonstrators.

 

"By trying to hit the Revolutionary Guards … ‍the Europeans actually shot themselves ‍in the foot and once again made a decision against the ?interests of their people by blindly obeying the Americans," the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, told his fellow legislators, who all wore IRGC uniforms in support of the force.

 

"According to Article 7 of the law on counter-measures against the designation of the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, the armies of European countries are considered terrorist groups."

 

Mr Ghalibaf said the national security parliamentary commission would deliberate on the expulsion of EU countries' military attaches and follow up on the issue with Iran's Foreign Ministry.

 

 

 

 

Iran's senior national security official said on Saturday that progress was being made on creating a framework for negotiations with the US.

 

“Contrary to the atmosphere being created by artificial media warfare, the ?formation ?of ‍a structure for negotiations ?is under ‌way,” Ali Larijani, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, said without elaborating.

 

Mr Trump said he believed Iran preferred to make a deal rather than face military action. “You could make a negotiated deal that would be satisfactory with no nuclear weapons … They should do that but I don’t know that they will. They are talking to us – seriously talking,” he told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday.

 

Mr Trump initially threatened to use military force against Iran as reports emerged of the action against anti-government protests in January. He appeared to back down after receiving assurances that Iran would not execute detained protesters.

 

Iran has repeatedly warned that it would respond to a new US attack with “all-out war”.

 

A number of countries, including the UAE and Qatar, have issued statements saying their airspace and territories would not be used for an attack on Iran.

 

Regional mediation has also taken place to ease the situation, including by Qatar, Turkey and Egypt, which worked with the US to mediate a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.

 

Qatari ?Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin ‌Abdulrahman met Mr Larijani on Saturday in Tehran to discuss “continuing efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region", Qatar's Foreign Ministry said. Doha has traditionally played a leading role in mediating between Tehran and Washington.

 

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi also held a phone call with Iranian leader Masoud Pezeshkian to discuss the crisis. Mr El Sisi stressed the need for Iran and the US to return to the negotiating table.

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Mr Pezeshkian on Friday that Turkey was willing to “play a facilitating role between Iran and the US to reduce tensions and resolve issues”, his office said. Mr Erdogan also met Mr Araghchi in Istanbul.

 

The US and Tehran held several rounds of talks last year over an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, after the US pulled out of a previous deal in 2018 during Mr Trump’s first term. But the talks collapsed when Israel attacked Iran in June, starting a 12-day war in which the US also struck Iran’s nuclear sites.  - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/02 February 2026 - - -