Tehran, Iran – Iran’s political and navy leaders are pointing the finger again at Donald Trump after the USA president sharpened his rhetoric throughout his first main tour of the Center East.
In a speech to a bunch of academics gathered for a state ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mentioned a few of Trump’s feedback weren’t even value responding to.
“The extent of these remarks is so low that they’re a shame for the one who uttered them and a shame to the American nation,” he mentioned, to chants of “Dying to America” and others from the gang.
Khamenei added that Trump “lied” when he mentioned he desires to make use of energy in the direction of peace, as Washington has backed “massacring” Palestinians and others throughout the area. He referred to as Israel a “harmful cancerous tumour” that should be “uprooted”.
In the meantime, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian additionally instructed a gathering of navy officers on Saturday that Trump is extending a message of peace whereas threatening destruction concurrently backing Israel’s “genocide” within the Gaza Strip.
“Which certainly one of this president’s phrases ought to we consider? His message of peace, or his message of bloodbath of human beings?” the Iranian president mentioned, mentioning that Trump sanctioned the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) in a transfer that was internationally criticised.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks throughout a gathering with members of the Iranian Navy in Tehran, Iran, on Could 17, 2025 (Iran’s Presidential web site/WANA/Handout through Reuters)
The statements got here after Trump used his Center East tour – throughout which he signed big offers with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – to heap reward on Arab leaders neighbouring Iran and blasting the management in Tehran.
The US president instructed Arab leaders they have been growing their infrastructure whereas Iran’s “landmarks are collapsing into rubble” after its theocratic institution changed a monarchy in a 1979 revolution.
He mentioned Iran’s leaders have “managed to show inexperienced farmland into dry deserts” on account of corruption and mismanagement, and identified that Iranians are experiencing energy outages a number of hours a day.
The blackouts, a results of a years-long power disaster that’s hurting Iran’s already strained economic system, are anticipated to linger for the remainder of this yr as properly, in response to Iranian authorities.
The biggest associations of the mining, metal and cement industries in Iran on Saturday wrote a joint letter to Pezeshkian, urgently requesting him to assessment a 90 p.c electrical energy use restriction imposed on the vital sectors.
Trump, who hailed Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and lifted sanctions on Damascus, additionally took intention at Iran’s regional coverage.
He described Tehran’s assist for the fallen institution of President Bashar al-Assad as a explanation for “distress and demise” and regional destabilisation.
Iran’s Overseas Minister Abbas Araghchi described the US president’s remarks as “misleading”, telling state media on Friday it was the US that hampered Iran by means of sanctions and navy threats whereas backing Israel and attacking Syria.
Parliament chief Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was addressing an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) convention in Indonesia, mentioned Trump’s remarks confirmed he was “dwelling in a delusion”.
Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed Trump instantly on Friday and mentioned though Iran has lovely landmarks, “we take pleasure within the elevation of character, identification, tradition, and Islam”.
The sharp rhetoric in response to Trump’s newest controversial feedback come days after he teased that he might begin calling the “Persian Gulf” the “Arabian Gulf” quickly.
This angered Iranians throughout the board, prompting criticism of any try and rename the important thing waterway from common residents on-line, authorities, native media, and even some pro-Trump Iranians outdoors the nation who’ve been advocating for US sanctions and regime change.
A banner in downtown Tehran’s Palestine Sq. reveals quite a few places in Israel as a Yemeni dagger (jambiya) with writing in Farsi studying: “All targets are inside vary, Yemeni missiles for now!” and in Hebrew “All targets are inside attain, we’ll select”, on Could 5, 2025 (Vahid Salemi/AP)
Scepticism over Iran-US deal
Each Iran and the US say they would like an settlement that will serve to shortly de-escalate tensions surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme, regardless of the newest disagreement.
However after 4 rounds of negotiations mediated by Oman, any potential deal – which might raise sanctions in alternate for ensuring Iran wouldn’t have a nuclear bomb – nonetheless seems to face vital hurdles.
Trump mentioned Tehran has been handed a proposal to quickly advance in the direction of a deal, however Iran’s Araghchi on Friday mentioned no written proposal was produced but amid “complicated and contradictory” rhetoric from Washington.
“Mark my phrases: there isn’t any state of affairs wherein Iran abandons its hard-earned proper to enrichment for peaceable functions: a proper afforded to all different NPT signatories, too,” he wrote in a put up on X, in reference to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior nuclear negotiator, on Friday rejected experiences by Western media retailers that Iran might agree to totally halt its enrichment of uranium for the rest of the Trump presidency to construct belief.
“The fitting to counterpoint is our absolute purple line! No halt to enrichment is suitable.”
Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear accord signed between Iran and world powers three years earlier, imposing the harshest sanctions but by the US which have solely intensified throughout the newest negotiations.
The nuclear deal set a 3.67 p.c enrichment price with first-generation centrifuges for civilian use in Iran, in alternate for lifting United Nations sanctions. Iran is now enriching as much as 60 p.c and has sufficient fissile materials for a number of bombs, however has made no effort to construct one but.
