Iran says the U.S. keeps violating the ceasefire

Iran’s foreign ministry said Monday that the United States has continued to violate the ceasefire, after U.S. strikes on a southern port triggered a brief military flare-up – the second under very similar circumstances in a week.

“The United States is also violating the ceasefire including this morning,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly news briefing, vowing that Iran would “take whatever measures we deem necessary to defend Iran’s national security.”

Baqaei asserted that a lack of trust, constant change of positions by the U.S., and Israeli actions in Lebanon were delaying diplomatic attempts to extend the ceasefire, according to the Reuters news agency.

“We insist that a ceasefire in Lebanon is an essential condition for any deal aimed at ending the war,” Baqaei said, reiterating a longstanding Iranian demand in the negotiations with the U.S.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Monday that they had ordered forces to launch new attacks on targets purportedly linked to Iranian-backed Hezbollah in the southern Dahiyeh neighborhood of Lebanon’s capital Beirut.