US President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, as activists yesterday said the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran over the weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted that “the situation has come under total control,” blaming Israel and the US for the violence, without offering evidence.
Photo: Handout from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting via Reuters
“That’s why the demonstrations turned violent and bloody to give an excuse to the American president to intervene,” Araghchi said, in comments carried by the al-Jazeera satellite news network.
Al-Jazeera has been allowed to report from inside the country live, despite the Internet being shut off.
However, Araghchi said Iran was “open to diplomacy.”
Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmail Baghaei said a channel to the US remained open, but talks needed to be “based on the acceptance of mutual interests and concerns, not a negotiation that is one-sided, unilateral and based on dictation.”
Meanwhile, Iran drew tens of thousands of pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, which appeared to number in the tens of thousands, who shouted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Others cried out: “Death to the enemies of God!”
Iran’s attorney general has said prosecutors would levy such charges against protesters, which carry the death penalty.
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran, including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the US or Israel, said two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night.
Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he might have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
“The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate,” he added.
Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, on Sunday warned that the US military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the Internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
At 2pm yesterday, Iranian state TV showed images of demonstrators thronging Tehran toward Enghelab Square, or “Islamic Revolution” Square in the capital. It had been airing statements all morning from Iranian government, security and religious leaders to attend the demonstration.
It called the rally an “Iranian uprising against American-Zionist terrorism,” without addressing the underlying anger in the country over the nation’s ailing economy. State TV aired images of such demonstrations around the country, trying to signal it had overcome the protests.
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