Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iran is “ready” to respond to any renewed military attack, the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in comments carried by state TV on Wednesday, adding Tehran was capable of delivering “even bigger blows” to adversaries than the one delivered during the 12-day Iran-Israel war last month.

“Although we consider the Zionist regime [Israel] a cancer and the US a criminal due to its support of that regime, we did not seek war,” Khamenei said. “Yet whenever the enemy attacked, our response was forceful and firm.”

The Islamic Republic “not only does not fear America — it instills fear in it,” the Iranian leader added, speaking to the country’s judiciary officials in his second public appearance since the June 13-24 war with Israel.

During the conflict, Israel decimated Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as much of its air defense systems, missile launch capabilities, and top military commanders and nuclear scientists. The US also bombed three key Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel as fighting ensued, most of them hitting civilian areas.

A US-brokered ceasefire ended the conflict, and Washington has been pushing Tehran to negotiate a deal that imposes strict limits on its nuclear program, which Western countries believe is designed to build nuclear weapons. Iran claims its program is for peaceful purposes.

However, Iran‘s parliament said the country should not resume nuclear negotiations with the US until preconditions are met, in a statement reported on Wednesday by Iranian state media.

“When the US use negotiations as a tool to deceive Iran and cover up a sudden military attack by the Zionist regime [Israel], talks cannot be conducted as before. Preconditions must be set, and no new negotiations can take place until they are fully met,” the statement said.

The statement did not define the preconditions, but Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has previously said there should be guarantees there will be no further attacks against Tehran.

Tehran and Washington had held five rounds of indirect negotiations mediated by Oman prior to the 12-day air war, with US demands that Tehran drop its domestic uranium enrichment program reaching a dead end.

Last week, Araqchi reiterated Tehran’s position that it would not agree to a nuclear deal that prevents it from enriching uranium and would refuse to discuss extra-nuclear topics such as its ballistic missile program.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was in no rush to negotiate with Iran as its nuclear sites were now “obliterated,” but the US, in coordination with three European countries, has agreed to set the end of August as the deadline for a deal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday that Paris, London, and Berlin would trigger the United Nations sanctions snapback mechanism, which would reimpose international sanctions on Iran, by the end of August if there is no concrete progress regarding an agreement.