Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi:

If, God forbid, the United States decides to attack us, then U.S. bases in the region would become legitimate targets.

We consider them U.S. bases, not the territory of our neighbors or the countries where they are located.

Last time, when we had no choice but to attack the American base in Qatar, I immediately called my dear brother, the Foreign Minister of Qatar, even before the attack.

I informed him in advance and told him clearly that this was not an attack against Qatar.

It was an attack against U.S. facilities located in Qatar. We wanted them to understand that distinction.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi:

There is only one entity in this region that wants war, and that is Israel.

Israel is trying to drag the United States into a war with Iran. They cannot do it alone. They tried and failed, so they asked the U.S. to help them.

I believe this is an Israeli plot to pull the United States into war in this region.

You ask whether we distinguish between Israel and Netanyahu. For now, he is the Prime Minister of Israel. He is the one in power and responsible for these actions.

We see many indications that efforts are being made to draw President Trump into this war with Iran, which would be very unfortunate and not in the interests of the American people.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on the war in Ukraine:

I think this will be remembered as Putin's hubris, Putin's criminal mistake that ruined his place in history.

It was supposed to be otherwise. It was supposed to be the crowning victory.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski on Elon Musk:

We expect Elon Musk not to give the same service to the enemy and not to enable the enemy.

I’m glad — perhaps somewhat — when I pointed out the problem to him action was taken and the illegal Russian Starlinks were switched off. Should have been done two years ago.

And apparently this has sowed some confusion in Russian ranks. Good.

Polish Foreign Minister Sikorski:

If Putin were to conquer Ukraine, Russia would become a partner for the United States in the global distribution of power.

And we think the European Union, with a much bigger economy and democracy and so on, should be America’s main partner on this continent.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi:

We discovered that instructions were coming from outside the country.

It was a very well-planned operation directed from abroad — from Israel — possibly aimed at creating something like a coup in Iran.

There were hundreds of armed elements who suddenly appeared in many Iranian cities.

They acted in ways similar to terrorist groups. Some police officers were beheaded, and others were burned alive. They then began shooting at people indiscriminately.

What was very strange to us was that even some protesters were being killed.

Because President Trump had said that if there were killings, he would intervene. So the apparent goal was to increase the number of deaths in order to draw the United States into the situation.

Trump:

Congratulations to Gianni Infantino on 10 years of being the President of FIFA — What a GREAT Leader he has been.

I hope he is there for another 10, 20, or 30 years!

Trump on Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib:

When people can behave like that, and knowing that they are Crooked and Corrupt Politicians, so bad for our Country, we should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible.

Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi on what happens if the U.S. kills Khamenei:

If a new leader were elected, that would happen whenever needed, so we have no problem with that.

I have seen in the U.S. media and elsewhere suggestions about assassinating the leader and similar ideas. But this is a system.

It is a well-established mechanism that exists within the system itself, so nothing would collapse. Everyone would be replaced through established procedures.

Our system does not depend on individuals. It is supported by the people. So I am not worried at all. Even in the middle of war, nothing collapsed, and we were able to continue our self-defense.

If anything like that were to happen again, the system would handle it. There is no problem with the system.

Steve Witkoff said the Trump administration wants any new Iran nuclear deal to have no expiration date, rejecting the “sunset provisions” in the 2015 agreement.

Speaking privately ahead of talks in Geneva, Witkoff said Iran must commit to permanent limits on its nuclear program.

Source: Axios

NEW: Four passengers on a U.S. speedboat were shot and killed by the Cuban Coast Guard, Cuba’s Interior Ministry said.

The U.S. Treasury Department will allow companies to seek licenses to resell Venezuela oil to Cuba, potentially easing Cuba’s fuel shortage after shipments stopped earlier this year.

The policy excludes deals involving Cuba’s military or government entities and requires standard commercial terms.

Source: Reuters

The trilateral meeting on Ukraine has been postponed to early March; the venue is being coordinated.

Source: TASS

Larry Summers will retire from Harvard at the end of the academic year after documents revealed correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein.

Zelensky:

I have just spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump. Representatives of President Trump – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – were also on the call.

We discussed the issues that our representatives will be working on tomorrow in Geneva at a bilateral meeting, as well as the preparation for the next meeting of the negotiating teams in a full trilateral format at the very beginning of March.

We expect that this will make it possible to move to negotiations at the leaders’ level. President Trump supports this sequence of steps.

According to an Arab diplomat familiar with key clauses in one draft of Iran’s proposal, Tehran is willing to lower its uranium enrichment level from 60% to about 3.6% — similar to the level agreed in the 2015 nuclear deal.

The diplomat said the U.S. did not insist on “zero enrichment” in the previous round of talks.

Under the draft, Iran would suspend uranium enrichment for seven years, while Washington is seeking a ten-year commitment.

A major dispute concerns Iran’s stockpile of several hundred kilograms of uranium. Iran refuses to ship it abroad and is only willing to dilute it.

The U.S., however, insists the material be removed from Iranian territory.

Source: Kan News

Netanyahu altered his style for Modi.

JD Vance:

We are announcing today that we have decided to temporarily hold certain amounts of Medicaid funding that are going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money.

JD Vance on Cuba:

Marco briefed me about 15 minutes ago on it, but we don't know a whole lot of details.

Hopefully, it's not as bad as we fear it could be, but I can't say more because I just don't know more.

JD Vance on Iran:

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon; if they try to rebuild the nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us.

In fact, we've seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that.

Iran has surged oil exports from Kharg Island, loading about 20 million barrels from Feb. 15–20—nearly triple January’s pace—as the US boosts military forces in the region.

Satellite data show tanker activity doubling, suggesting Tehran is moving oil quickly in case tensions disrupt shipments.

Source: Bloomberg