Irans leader calls Trump a criminal for backing | Political News

Iran’s Supreme Leader called Donald Trump a “criminal” for supporting protestors in Iran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the protests in Iran have left “several thousand” people useless, and condemned the U.S. president for supporting them. His remarks on Saturday have been the first time a major leader from the Middle Eastern nation has addressed the casualties from the wave of protests that started on Dec. 28.

“In this revolt, the U.S. president made remarks in person, encouraged seditious people to go ahead and said: ‘We do support you, we do support you militarily,'” said Khamenei.

Khamenei also restated his long-held accusation that the U.S. seeks whole domination over Iran’s financial and political assets. Other Iranian officers have accused the U.S. of meddling in the unrest.

“We do consider the U.S. president a criminal, because of casualties and damages, because of accusations against the Iranian nation,” he said.

Khamenei labeled the protestors “foot soldiers” of the United States, and said that they’d destroyed mosques and schooling facilities since the protests started.

“Through hurting people, they killed several thousand of them,” he said.

Trump’s response to the accusation was immediate, and he told Politico in an interview later Saturday, “The man is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people. His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership.”

Trump also called for an end to the Supreme Leader’s reign, which has lasted almost 4 a long time. He added, “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.”

On Friday, Trump claimed that Iran had “canceled the hanging of over 800 people,” including, “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled.”

Though he didn’t make clear who he had gotten this data from, his feedback urged to many that he could have modified his thoughts about a potential navy strike. Fears have been steadily rising in current weeks, alongside other conflicts with Venezuela and Greenland.

However, Trump has continued to align himself with the protestors, telling them that “help is on the way” and that his administration would “act accordingly” if the killing of demonstrators continued or if Iranian authorities executed detained protesters, the AP reported.

In his speech, Khamenei said the rioters have been armed with live ammunition that was imported from overseas, without naming any nations.

“We do not plan, we do not take the country toward war. But we do not release domestic offenders, worse than domestic offenders; there are international offenders. We do not let them alone either,” he said, and urged officers to pursue the instances.