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Only days after the signing of a nuclear deal with the P5+1 powers, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei verbally attacked the US and Israel.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attacked the West and Israel on Saturday, stressing that the nuclear deal signed last week will not change his country’s policy toward the “arrogant” US.
Making his first public speech since the Islamic Republic’s historic pact with world powers, Khamenei said that “Iran has no trust in the US because American politicians are completely dishonest and unfair.”
Khamenei said that a more wide-ranging agreement with America is unlikely, striking a different pose than Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who said earlier that the Vienna accord could “step-by-step remove bricks from the wall of mistrust” between Iran and the US.
“We have no negotiations with America about various global and regional issues. We have no negotiations on bilateral issues,” Khamenei clarified.
Iranians burn American and Israeli flags on Quds Day. (AP/Vahid Salemi)
“Our policy toward the arrogant US government won’t change at all,” Khamenei said in an address at a Tehran mosque carried live by state television.
His address was punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Responding to the chants, Khamenei said they were “the slogans of the people of Iran,” which “indicated what directions they’re heading for.”
Khamenei’s speech, which he gave to a large crowd in Tehran to mark the end of the Muslim month of Ramadan, stressed that Iran will continue to support its allies in the Middle East, including the Lebanese Hezbollah terror organization, Palestinian terror groups and the Syrian government.
“Whether the deal is approved or disapproved, we will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon,” he said.
“The Americans dub the Lebanese resistance as terrorist and regard Iran as a supporter of terrorism because of its support for the Lebanese Hezbollah, while the Americans, themselves, are real terrorists who have created Daesh [ISIS] and support the wicked Zionists,” the Iranian leader said.
He again called for the destruction of Israel, which he described in his speech as a “terrorist, baby-killer government.”
“Plainly we don’t want war,” Khamenei said. “But if war breaks out, it will be the aggressive, cruel America that loses.”
However, the ayatollah’s remarks also praised the Iranian negotiators who struck the nuclear deal. That likely means that he will not offer major criticism of the agreement as Iran’s parliament and its Supreme National Security Council, the nation’s highest security decision-making body, consider the agreement in the coming days.
Attempting to explain Khamenei’s harsh words, Iranian politician Hamid Reza Taraqi said the ayatollah sought to “nullify efforts by the US to damage Iran’s anti-arrogance stance.”
“Americans have tried to suggest that Iran has given up its anti-US stance in order to tarnish Tehran’s image in the eyes of its supporters. The leader’s remarks nullified that,” he said.
Taraqi accused Rouhani and his moderate allies of “seeking to pave the way for normalization of relations with the US.”
By: United with Israel Staff and AP
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