{"id":22567,"date":"2026-07-31T01:15:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22567"},"modified":"2026-07-31T01:15:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:15:27","slug":"irans-araqchi-presses-european-counterparts-over-use-of-bases-in-us-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=22567","title":{"rendered":"Iran&#8217;s Araqchi presses European counterparts over use of bases in US operations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-article-body=\"true\" data-body-type=\"bodyblocks\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) &#8211; Iran&#8217;s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi urged Bulgaria to reconsider its decision to allow the temporary deployment of U.S. \u200cmilitary aircraft at the Bezmer air base, Iranian state media reported \u200con Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">During a phone call with his Bulgarian counterpart, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, Araqchi said Sofia&#8217;s approval of \u200ba U.S. request to station military aircraft at the base to support military operations amounted to facilitating aggression against Iran, adding the move was unacceptable and contrary to the traditionally friendly relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Iran has repeatedly warned countries \u200callowing their territory to be \u2060used for U.S. military operations against it that they could &#8220;face consequences&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Araqchi held a separate phone call with Cypriot Foreign Minister \u2060Constantinos Kombos, during which he stressed the importance of preventing foreign military bases in Cyprus from being used against Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Bulgaria&#8217;s parliament last week approved the temporary deployment \u200bof up \u200bto eight U.S. KC-135 tanker aircraft and \u200bup to 250 personnel at \u200cBezmer air base despite Iranian objections. Sofia has said no offensive weapons would be deployed and that the move did not make Bulgaria a party to military operations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Cyprus hosts two British sovereign military bases, including RAF Akrotiri, which was struck by an Iranian drone in early March, a few days after Israel \u200cand the U.S. initiated strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Britain \u200bagreed early on in the war to a \u200bU.S. request to use British \u200bbases for defensive strikes against Iranian missiles in storage depots \u200cor launchers. Britain later clarified RAF \u200bAkrotiri would not be \u200binvolved in its defensive agreement with the United States to use UK bases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The broader defence arrangement was maintained by the new British Prime \u200bMinister Andy Burnham in \u200cJuly, prompting Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guards to warn Britain against facilitating U.S. military \u200boperations against Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; additional reporting by Michele \u200bKambas in Cyprus; Editing by Alex Richardson)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) &#8211; Iran&#8217;s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi urged Bulgaria to reconsider its decision to allow the temporary deployment of U.S. \u200cmilitary aircraft at the Bezmer air base, Iranian state media reported \u200con Thursday. During a phone call with his Bulgarian counterpart, Velislava Petrova-Chamova, Araqchi said Sofia&#8217;s approval of \u200ba U.S. request to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/7a9cb311745bfa141d25b60681b926e737eae6711dacd4638a29be301f595117\/lightyear_networkapi\/resizefill_w800_h533;quality_80;format_webp\/https:%2F%2Fmedia.zenfs.com%2Fen%2Freuters.com%2Fdaf2f1c80da6578cbfcdecabe829dc08","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-trending-viral-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}