Iranian FM: New leader could be chosen in a day; Iran plans to resist US, Israel ‘as long as it takes’

By Nava Freiberg

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1 March 2026, 5:32 pm

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Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi looks on during a meeting with Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, at Tahrir Palace in Cairo, September 9, 2025. (AP/Khaled Elfiqi, File)

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says that Iran could select a new leader within “a day or two,” following the killing this weekend of former supreme leader Ali Khamenei in the US-Israeli campaign against the Iranian regime.

“You may see the selection of a supreme leader in a day or two,” Araghchi tells Al Jazeera in an interview, condemning the military strikes on his country and warning Khamenei’s assassination “would make this conflict — this war of aggression by the Americans against us — even more dangerous and more complicated, and it would perhaps add new aspects to it.”

“This war cannot bring about any good result for the other side,” he says to the Qatari news network. “They have not been able to achieve their targets, and they will not be able to achieve their targets in the coming days. As long as they continue, they cannot achieve anything.”

He says the current conflict reminds him of the last US-Israeli campaign against Iran in June, where, he says, Israel and the US ultimately “had no option but to ask for an unconditional ceasefire” after 12 days of fighting. Israel and the US portrayed that operation as a success that achieved their goals.

“I do not see any difference between this time and the previous time,” he continues. “We will resist as long as it takes, and they will see the result.”