Trump slams Iran govt in Nowruz message

washington — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticised Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country’s leadership while greeting Iranians celebrating the New Year’s holiday known as Nowruz.

Trump, who has threatened to pull Washington out of a multilateral deal with Tehran to curb its nuclear programme, said Iranians today are grappling with “rulers who serve themselves instead of serving the people.”

“I wish a beautiful and blessed Nowruz to the millions of people around the world who are celebrating the arrival of spring. The history of Nowruz is rooted in Iran, where for millennia a proud nation has overcome great challenges by the strength of its culture and the resilience of its people,” Trump said.

“Today, the Iranian people face another challenge: rulers who serve themselves instead of serving the people,” he said in his annual message on Nowruz, which is being celebrated today.

Twenty-five centuries ago, he said, Darius the Great asked God to protect Iran from three dangers: hostile armies, drought, and falsehood.

“Today, the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard

Corps (IRGC) represents all three,” he alleged.

First, the IRGC is not Iranian in name or deed. It is a hostile army that brutalises and steals from the Iranian people to fund terrorism abroad. Since 2012, the IRGC has spent more than $16 billion of Iran’s wealth to prop up the Assad regime and support militants and terrorists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, he said. — PTI