Iranian minister warns US not to join in Israeli attacks
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a rare interview with the Iranian government from inside Tehran, Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh tells the BBC's Lyse Doucet it would be "a big mistake" for President Trump to join Israel's bombing campaign. It's a view shared by many of Mr Trump's most loyal supporters; we assess what's at stake, militarily and politically.
Also in the programme: a draft peace deal to end the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo; and the American businessman buying the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team for an eye-watering $10bn.
(IMAGE: Smoke rises near the Milad Tower following an Israeli airstrike on Tehran, Iran, 18 June 2025 / CREDIT: Abedin Taherkenareh / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:06.3 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. |
| 0:09.5 | And we are once again devoting quite a bit of today's program, but not all, to the war between Israel and Iran. |
| 0:14.9 | Now in its seventh day. |
| 0:16.7 | And in a moment, we'll be hearing a perspective that we haven't had in that time. |
| 0:20.4 | The views of a senior Iranian government minister who's in Tehran. |
| 0:25.5 | But first of the latest developments in the conflict, because overnight and into the morning, |
| 0:29.3 | there was a series of strikes by Iranian missiles that managed to evade Israel's defensive systems. |
| 0:36.0 | The emergency services there said at least 89 people have been injured |
| 0:39.8 | overall. One of the buildings hit was a hospital in the southern city of Beersheba. |
| 0:44.7 | Shlomi Kodesh is head of the Soroka Medical Center. |
| 0:49.0 | The people we have left in the hospital are elderly people, cancer patients, people who need |
| 0:53.5 | urgent medical care, they cannot go |
| 0:55.6 | home. And these people were targeted directly to be killed by a missile attack. There is no other |
| 1:02.6 | explanation for this. And it's shocking that such a thing would take place. Well, Iran said it was |
| 1:08.9 | targeting a military base nearby, not the hospital itself. However, |
| 1:13.5 | following that attack, Israel's Defence Minister Israel Kat, said that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali |
| 1:19.0 | Khamenei could, quote, no longer be allowed to exist. Well, all this is unfolding as President |
| 1:25.1 | Trump weighs up whether to join Israel's attacks on Iran |
| 1:28.6 | and while others try to find a way to end the fighting. |
| 1:33.1 | Joining me now is our chief international correspondent, Lees Doucette. |
| 1:36.8 | Lees, is there still a chance for diplomacy here? |
... |
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