Trump’s demand for regime change is ‘impossible,’ says Iran’s foreign minister

Regime change in Iran is “impossible,” the country’s foreign minister told NBC News, hours after the US and Israel launched a major offensive against the Islamic Republic and President Donald Trump called on citizens to overthrow their leaders.

“You cannot do regime change while millions of people support the so-called regime,” Abbas Araghchi said in an interview in the capital Tehran.

He said “as far as I know,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is alive, although the 86-year-old man’s whereabouts are unknown after Israel targeted the country’s political leaders.

On Thursday, a team of Iranian negotiators was talking to US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, in Geneva, Switzerland, with the aim of avoiding a possible military attack, “and the agreement was close to us,” said Araghchi.

“We were able to answer critical questions about Iran’s nuclear program. Obviously we have disagreements, but we resolved some of these disagreements, and we decided to move forward to resolve all questions,” he said, adding that he did not know why while the talks were going on “they decided to attack us.”

Other high-ranking government officials survived, Araghchi said, including President Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the judiciary and the speaker of the parliament. Two managers were killed.

The strikes, during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, came a few weeks after a US military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and brought them to New York to face drug conspiracy charges.

It also marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic.

In a video announcing “massive combat operations,” Trump told the Iranians to “take over your government” when the U.S. is finished. “It will be yours to take,” he said. This will be your only chance for generations.

His comments were echoed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the plan would “create the conditions for brave Iranians to take their destiny into their own hands.”

But Araghchi said regime change is unlikely because Iran’s government is “backed by the people.”

Unprecedented unrest across the country last month saw authorities in Iran launch a deadly crackdown.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it has confirmed more than 7,000 deaths and is investigating thousands more. The group says it verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that its data goes through “multiple internal checks.”

The Iranian government has admitted that more than 3,000 people have died.

“Yes, there are people who complain, but there are strong supporters of the regime,” said Araghchi. “And we have a well-established political structure.”

Millions of people took to the streets in cities across the country to mark the latest anniversary of the 1979 revolution, Araghchi noted.

He added that the US and others have tried and failed to do this in the past, so if they want to repeat the failed experience, “they will not get a better result.”

Although there was “no communication right now” with the US, Araghchi said, Tehran was interested in easing the economy and was ready to talk once the US-Israeli strikes ended.

Iran was “interested in backing down,” the U.S. negotiator said if it wanted to continue negotiations, he said. “This is a war of choice by the United States, and they have to pay for it,” he added. “But as for us, we don’t want war.”

Disputing Trump’s claim in his State of the Union address that the Islamic Republic was developing missiles capable of hitting the US, Araghchi said Iran had no desire to do so and had deliberately limited the range of its missiles.

“We don’t want to do that because we have no animosity against, you know, the people of the United States,” he said. Iran, he added, is building weapons “to defend ourselves against our enemies.”

American forces were attacking our people in our cities, he said, “but this is not what we are going to do. We are attacking American bases, military bases in the region, and military buildings and facilities, and this is an act of self-defense.”

He also pointed out that Iran says it is a dangerous strike on a school in the south of the city of Minab. Many people died in this incident, said local officials.

In a previous post to X, he shared a photo of dozens of people surrounding a badly damaged building with smoke rising from the center, which he said was “bombed in broad daylight, where it was full of young students.”