Iran: Russia asks US not to meddle
MOSCOW/TEHRAN: Moscow on Thursday warned Washington against interfering in Iran’s “internal affairs” after US President Donald Trump pledged to help Iranians “take back” their government following protests.
The White House said it was weighing sanctions against those involved in a crackdown against the unrest, which has left 21 dead over five days.
“We warn the US against any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with state news agency TASS. “Despite the many attempts to distort what is really going on (in Iran), I am sure that our neighbour, our friend, will overcome its current difficulties,” Ryabkov said.
He also criticised a call by US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the violence.
Protests over economic problems broke out in Iran’s second largest city Mashhad on December 28 and quickly spread across the country, turning against the regime as a whole.tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in several cities on Wednesday for pro-regime rallies.
On Thursday, Iran charged that the US “has crossed every limit” in international relations by expressing support for antigovernment protesters and said President Trump’s “absurd tweets” have encouraged disruption. In a letter to UN officials, Iranian ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo complained that Washington was intervening “in a grotesque way in Iran’s internal affairs”. He said Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were personally stirring up trouble.
“The President and Vice-president of the United States, in their numerous absurd tweets, incited Iranians to engage in disruptive acts,” the envoy wrote to the UN Security Council president and UN Secretary-general Antonio Guterres. Ousted South Korean president to be charged with accepting bribes from the state spy agency Park allegedly received between 50 and 200 million won (now $47,000 to $188,000) from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) every month from soon after her swearing-in in early 2013 until mid-2016, media reports said