Iran has dismissed a call by Donald Trump to make peace with Washington, saying the US President's words were at odds with his policy after American bombing of the country.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said Mr Trump's desire for peace and dialogue contradicted Washington's “hostile and criminal behaviour” towards Iran.
Mr Trump addressed Israel's parliament on Monday during a trip to the Middle East to cement a peace deal between Israel and Hamas. The agreement has brought a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Hamas is part of a network of Iranian proxy groups around the region engaged in anti-Israeli militancy. Mr Trump in his speech told Iran's leaders “to renounce terrorists, stop threatening their neighbours, quit funding their militant proxies and finally recognise Israel's right to exist”.
But he also extended a hand to the country, saying he believed Iran would eventually make peace with Washington.
Iran's Foreign Ministry dismissed that possibility.
“How can one attack the residential areas and nuclear facilities of a country in the midst of political negotiations, kill more than 1,000 people including innocent women and children, and then demand peace and friendship?” the ministry said.
In June, the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites as part of a 12-day war between Tehran and Israel, a major US ally. Israel and the US accuse Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, a claim Tehran denies. The war derailed high-level talks between Tehran and Washington on Iran's nuclear energy programme.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry rebuffed Mr Trump's claims of proxies and sponsoring terrorism, calling his remarks “irresponsible and shameful”.
It accused the US of being “a leading producer of terrorism and a supporter of the terrorist and genocidal Zionist regime”, referring to Israel. “The United States … has no moral authority to accuse others,” the ministry said.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a post on X that “Mr Trump can either be a president of peace or a president of war, but he cannot be both at the same time”.
But Mr Araghchi also said Tehran was always open to “respectful and mutually beneficial diplomatic engagement”.
