Sky News Journo Who Partied at Embassy Scores Interview in Tehran, Rolls Over

Nicholas Fondacaro
March 16th, 2026 6:48 PM

Text to Speech

00:00 00:00
Font Size

Surprise, surprise. As CNN left Iran, their fellow Iranian Embassy party goer Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor for Sky News tagged in. On day two of his regime-approved jaunt through Tehran, Waghorn scored an exclusive interview with Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh. It took Waghorn several minutes to actually bring up the fact that the regime had slaughtered it’s people earlier this year, but he let Khatibzadeh wave it way.

The estimates for the number of Iranian civilians slaughtered by the Islamic regime were up to over 30,000. But after waiting over 11 minutes into the interview to bring it up, Waghorn didn’t give a number and didn’t blink when Khatibzadeh defended the killing with claims that the protests were “infiltrated from outside” by “terror cells”:

WAGHORN: Before this war we saw a huge amount of unrest. We saw thousands of Iranians take to the streets protesting against the government, and thousands of them were shot dead by security forces. How can you fight a war with so many Iranians not supporting your government? Apparently.

KHATIBZADEH: You just arrived yesterday. Take your time. Go to the street tonight and see millions of people marching around the flag and supporting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran.

Yes, there are those who were very much affected by this economic terrorism that the United States imposed on Iran. And there were a combination of peaceful protests turned into the one that. you know, many infiltrated terror cells that infiltrated from outside tried to misuse that, But I can tell you that the owners of this country are the people of Iran.

Waghorn did note that “Many Iranians are very conflicted” and “very divided,” which caused Khatibzadeh angerly declare, “They are not. They are not. They are not.”

 

 

The Iranian official laughably told Waghorn to go crosscheck his claim with the citizens and proclaimed that the unity in Iran was so massive that it even shocked him:

If I made this interview outside Iran, you would have told everybody that it is part of the propaganda. Now you have to go and see with your own eyes and crosscheck what I say. The level of unity inside Iran right now is so high to the level that even me personally was not expecting that. And this is because of the foreign invasion of Iran and this is because of the moral and the real cause of the defense of the country.

At no point did Waghorn push back on Khatibzadeh claims that the regime had targeted terrorists in the crowd. Nor did he confronted the Iranian official with the staggering death estimates and the accusations that IRGC members had attacked and raped nurses caring for the victims in hospitals.

Without ever being asked for evidence, Khatibzadeh was also allowed to get away with claiming (early in the interview that) America had “murdered more than 1,500 just civilians.” He also asserted that America had struck 36,000 civilian locations with weapons that Khatibzadeh completely made up. He said America was using something he called “double top ammunitions” and were “using unprecedented ammunitions to kill people.”

 

 

At the same time as claiming America was targeting Iranian civilians, Khatibzadeh proclaimed that Iran was not and had not targeted any civilian locations in any of their regional neighbors:

We are targeting. We are surgically, not randomly. What we are doing is just targeting their eyes, their ears in the region. Of their bases in the region and also in the territorial - in the occupied Palestine that we are doing these sorts of things we are doing is to defend our country. And we are going to continue that because this is what any proud nation on earth is doing.

That obviously false claim went unchallenged for several minutes until 14 minutes in, when Waghorn asked: “your regional allies in Qatar, in the UAE, and others, they are very angry that You've attacked them. What's your explanation for attacking their oil facilities, their hotels, their tourist centers?”

Khatibzadeh insisted that Iran was not hitting civilians but rather places American servicemembers were hiding:

KHATIBZADEH: No, we are not targeting any civilian or residential area.

WAGHORN: But they've been hit by your missiles.

KHATIBZADEH: No, actually they are sheltering. They are the place that Americans are cowardly sheltering there, and there is no even single, even one casualty from those countries.

Before the war, we told everybody that if Americans start this war against us, so every single base or asset of the United States or personnel of the United States, even hiding, sheltering in different places, would be our legitimate target because they're killing us. They're killing innocent people. They're killing civilians. They cannot hide and kill us.

 

 

Again, the false claims was never seriously challenged. Just like the regime liked.

Sky News had put the full video on YouTube, which can be seen here.

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

Sky News’s Interview With Iran Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh
March 16, 2026
00:00

DOMINIC WAGNER  (International affairs editor): The Americans and the Israelis say they have destroyed all your warplanes, all your naval ships, and most of your missiles. How much longer can Iran Hold on?

SAEED KHATIBZADEH: You know that we are exercising our right for self-defense. We are defending our country. They have they have started this war of aggression on us, this war of choice, unnecessary, unprovoked war against us, and they invaded Iran.

So, what is happening right now, they are invading our territorial integrity, our national sovereignty. And the national interest of all Iranians. They have almost murdered more than 1,500 just civilians.

They have targeted. I'm sure that you and your audience know that in the first few hours of this war of choice, they targeted an elementary school and killed 160-plus innocent kids at the age of 7 to 11.

So what we are doing is just defending our country as any nation on earth is doing against the aggressors. So, what we are doing is ultimate defense, and we are going to do that. We are continuing this. We have the will to defend our country, and this is the duty that we do have.

WAGHORN: Well, they would say they are only targeting military targets and any civilian targets are a mistake. And in their military targeting. They say they're being very successful. They've wiped out all your warplanes. Your navy is completely destroyed. Much of your missiles destroyed. It's only a matter of time, isn't it, before Iran is defeated? That's what they claim.

KHATIBZADEH: I don't know if you buy these sort of misarguments and your audience, they do buy this, that they are not targeting civilians intentionally.

You can go, you just arrived here, you can go and see residential areas, more than 36,000 civilian targets have been ruined by them, and many of which hospitals, you know, medical care, you know, you know, and, and, and, and, and, and the schools and different places with some of them with double top ammunitions. They are assassinating the head of the state. They are targeting civilian infrastructures. They are using unprecedented ammunitions to kill people. They are just passing all the red lines in this war, and they call it, you know, targeting civilians. Who buy this?

Just go and see the people who are dying on a daily basis. This is the brutality of this war which is committed by Israelis and, and Americans on a daily basis and and and and you have to know that maybe they say that they have ruined everything. You can go and see we are on a daily basis defending our country.

We are targeting. We are surgically, not randomly. What we are doing is just targeting their eyes, their ears in the region. Of their bases in the region and also in the territorial - in the occupied Palestine that we are doing these sorts of things we are doing is to defend our country. And we are going to continue that because this is what any proud nation on earth is doing.

WAGHORN: But how much longer can you carry on doing this if they are destroying most of your military?

(…)

11:18

WAGHORN: Before this war we saw a huge amount of unrest. We saw thousands of Iranians take to the streets protesting against the government, and thousands of them were shot dead by security forces. How can you fight a war with so many Iranians not supporting your government? Apparently.

KHATIBZADEH: You just arrived yesterday. Take your time. Go to the street tonight and see millions of people marching around the flag and supporting the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran.

Yes, there are those who were very much affected by this economic terrorism that the United States imposed on Iran. And there were a combination of peaceful protests turned into the one that. you know, many infiltrated terror cells that infiltrated from outside tried to misuse that, But I can tell you that the owners of this country are the people of Iran.

WAGHORN: And yet they seem very divided. I mean -

KHATIBZADEH: They are not.

WAGHORN: Many Iranians are very conflicted, aren't they?

KHATIBZADEH: They are not. They are not. As people in other countries. If you let them talk, they have different opinions. Of course, they are suffering from this economic terrorism.

The level of unity inside Iran. If I made this interview outside Iran, you would have told everybody that it is part of the propaganda. Now you have to go and see with your own eyes and crosscheck what I say.

The level of unity inside Iran right now is so high to the level that even me personally was not expecting that. And this is because of the foreign invasion of Iran and this is because of the moral and the real cause of the defense of the country. Everybody is trying to sacrifice his or her own life for the country, and this is the difference from those who started this war of choice and aggression on us and those who are doing this heroic defense.

WAGHORN: Just one about Britain. The British government says it is considering joining military patrols to open up the Strait of Hormuz. What's your message to the government in London?

(…)

13:52

WAGHORN: But if British ships were to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, would they be attacked by Iran?

KHATIBZADEH: I'm not answering hypothetical question. I would like to say that the best option is for everybody to get enough distance from this illegal war against Iran and

WAGHORN: And your regional allies in Qatar, in the UAE, and others, they are very angry that You've attacked them. What's your explanation for attacking their oil facilities, their hotels, their tourist centers?

KHATIBZADEH: No, we are not targeting any civilian or residential area.

WAGHORN: But they've been hit by your missiles.

KHATIBZADEH: No, actually they are sheltering. They are the place that Americans are cowardly sheltering there, and there is no even single, even one casualty from those countries.

Before the war, we told everybody that if Americans start this war against us, so every single base or asset of the United States or personnel of the United States, even hiding, sheltering in different places, would be our legitimate target because they're killing us. They're killing innocent people. They're killing civilians. They cannot hide and kill us.

Just the other day they launched more than 200 HIMARS missiles toward our islands from Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Americans did this. We know that UAE is not doing this, but this is what is happening, and they are using this 5,000 range kilometer radar in Qatar which which we actually targeted and different radars that they do have. The Fifth Fleet of the United States, no Navy is in Bahrain. Why? For fishing in the Persian Gulf?

Everybody knows what is happening. They do have bases around us. They are using those bases to target us. So, why we shouldn't target those bases when they initiated those attacks from those targets, from those bases, our neighbors told us that it is not initiated from their land. These are from American bases under U.S. jurisdiction. We didn't consider those attacks from those countries, and I think that it is logically understandable for them to not take what we are doing against these bases as an attack on their country.

If those bases are under U.S. jurisdiction. And if those, if those attacks initiated from those US bases are not from those countries, so what we are doing to hit them also is against those assets under U.S. jurisdiction.

WAGHORN: But hat you're saying also is if those Gulf countries reach out to you and say they think they can see a diplomatic way out of this crisis, you're still not open to negotiations.

(…)

Donor Privacy Policy