The United States has denied Iran’s claims that US officials said they were seeking a ceasefire in Gaza, CNN reported.

On Monday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told the state-run news agency Tasnim that the US had sent a message to Tehran over the past three days about efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza.

“They took some actions, but in practice they only supported the mass killings and genocide in Gaza,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

Asked by CNN, a spokesman for the US National Security Council said “this claim was categorically false”.

“We have made it clear to Iran that it should not seek to escalate the conflict and the consequences if it chooses to do so,” the spokesman said.

“We have also made it clear, publicly and privately, that we demand the release of the hostages held by Hamas. The release of the hostages will require a humanitarian pause in the fighting. Any delay in this process belongs to Hamas,” the US official said.

Amir-Abdollahian’s comments came after Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani visited Tehran on Monday, a day after meeting US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Baghdad.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called for coordination between Iraq and Iran to increase “political pressure” on the US and Israel to stop bombing Gaza, state media IRNA reported.

US President Joe Biden’s administration has sent a message to Iran and the fundamentalist Shiite group Hezbollah (from Lebanon) through countries in the region such as Turkey, warning that the US is ready to intervene militarily if the groups launch attacks on Israel, it said. American official sources were quoted by The New York Times in Monday’s edition, according to the Israeli television station i24news.

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