Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi blamed Israel and foreign “terrorist elements” for unrest inside the country and rejected reports that Iranian security forces carried out mass killings of protesters, during a contentious interview with Fox News host Brett Baier.
Araghchi said violence during the unrest was not the result of state repression but clashes between security forces and foreign-backed groups seeking to provoke the United States into war with Iran. “It was a fighting between our security forces and terrorist elements,” he said, describing the events as “a full-scale internal war.”
Baier repeatedly pushed back, citing witness accounts from inside Iran describing snipers firing into crowds, high numbers of casualties and videos showing bodies being removed from the streets, saying such reports contradicted Tehran’s account.
Araghchi dismissed those accounts as false, saying: “The footages that you mentioned have not been seen in Iran and it was a misinformation campaign is going on at the same time.”
On the death toll, Araghchi rejected figures cited by opposition figures and exiled Prince Pahlavi or more that 12,000, saying fatalities were “only hundreds” and that higher numbers were exaggerated.
When asked will be there any hanging in any days to follow, Araghchi said: "there is no plan for hanging at all."
