Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday said Iran is engaged in what he described as a comprehensive war with the United States, Israel and European countries, comments made ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
In an interview published on the website of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Pezeshkian said the current confrontation is more severe than Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, which resulted in more than one million casualties on both sides.
“We are facing a full-scale war with the U.S., Israel and Europe,” Pezeshkian said, adding that Western powers are seeking to destabilize Iran. He described the present conflict as more complex and challenging than the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq war.
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His remarks came just days before Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, where discussions with Trump are expected to focus heavily on Iran.
Tensions have escalated following Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran during a 12-day aerial conflict in June, which Iranian authorities said killed nearly 1,100 people, including senior military officials and nuclear scientists. Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks reportedly killed 28 people in Israel.