Qatar says Iran and US should focus on diplomacy after escalation

Qatar's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, told Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi during a telephone call this Thursday (9) that Iran and the United States must commit to diplomacy.

Al Thani added that Washington and Tehran should implement the memorandum of understanding signed with the aim of ending the war, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said.

Earlier on Thursday, Iran launched drones toward a site in Qatar, and a Qatari tanker was attacked in the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the week. During the call, Al Thani condemned the attack, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said.

Iran's military says it has hit US Patriot defense systems in Kuwait, a satellite antenna in Qatar and a US Army fuel depot in Bahrain with drones, state media reports.

The spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmail Baghaei, criticized, in the early hours of this Thursday, the stance of the Secretary General of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), Mark Rutte, accusing the military alliance of being "complicit in the war" of the United States and Israel against Iran.

In a post on the social network X, Baghaei stated that European NATO countries "were not impartial in this brutal and illegal aggression".

Also in the publication, Baghei said that Rutte's "insistent self-promotion" "exposes the servile mentality of a sycophantic courtier, who believes that flattery can erase a king's contempt."

"In Washington's eyes, an ineffective organization cannot be made effective through sycophancy - nor can such manipulative sycophancy ever restore the sycophant's own self-respect and personal integrity."

Iran's Ministry of Health reported on Thursday that 14 people had died and 78 were injured in the last two days in attacks by the United States.

The latest American offensive hit more than 90 targets across Iran, according to US Central Command. Iranian media reported explosions and bombings in cities on the country's southern coast and in the northern province of Golestan on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The night before, the American military hit 80 targets.

*with information from Reuters

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf: See who leads Iran's negotiations with the US

Source: CNN