Iran has sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s remarks on the ongoing protests in the country, calling his pledge of intervention “reckless and dangerous”.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi responded after Trump warned Iran’s authorities against using force on protesters and claimed Washington was prepared to step in to “rescue” them, reports BBC.
In a short social media post, Trump said the United States was “locked and loaded and ready to go,” without providing further clarification.
Reacting on X, Araghchi said that given Trump’s own decision to deploy the National Guard inside the United States, he should understand that attacks on public property cannot be accepted. He stressed that Iran would “firmly reject any interference in its internal affairs”.
An Iranian police spokesperson meanwhile said law enforcement would not allow what he described as “enemies” to exploit unrest and turn it into chaos.
According to reports, at least eight people have been killed during week-long protests across Iran as of Saturday morning. The semi-official Fars news agency and human rights group Hengaw reported that two protesters – identified as Ahmad Jalil and Sajjad Valamanesh – were killed during clashes with security forces in the south-western city of Lordegan.
Fars also reported three deaths in Azna and another in Kouhdasht, both in western Iran, without clarifying whether the victims were demonstrators or security personnel. Additional deaths were reported in Fuladshahr in central Iran and Marvdasht in the south. The BBC said it could not independently verify the casualty figures.
The protests, which have spread to several cities and towns, have seen repeated clashes between demonstrators and security forces. They began in Tehran among shopkeepers angered by a sharp drop in the value of the Iranian currency against the US dollar in the open market.
By Tuesday, university students had joined the demonstrations, which then expanded nationwide, with protesters chanting slogans against Iran’s clerical leadership. While the unrest marks the most extensive protests since the 2022 uprising following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody, it has not reached the same scale.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has said his government is prepared to listen to the “legitimate demands” of protesters. However, Prosecutor-General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad warned that any move to destabilise the country would face a “decisive response”.
Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir-Saeid Iravani, has urged the UN Security Council to condemn Trump’s remarks.
In a letter to the UN secretary-general and the Security Council president, he said Iran would respond “decisively and proportionately” and warned that the United States would bear full responsibility for any consequences arising from what he termed unlawful threats.
