Special to WorldTribune.com
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said he is grateful to U.S. President Donald Trump for showing “the real face of America.”
Khamenei’s website quoted him as making the comments in a February 7 meeting with military commanders in Tehran.
“What we have said for more than 30 years — that there is political, economic, moral, and social corruption in the ruling system of the United States — this gentleman came and brought it out into the open in the election and after the election,” he said.
Khamenei also warned that “no enemy can paralyze the Iranian nation” and called on Iranians to respond to Trump’s “threats” on this week’s anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“The Iranian people will respond to his words on February 10, and will show their stance against such threats,” Khamenei said.
The Trump administration last week imposed new sanctions on more than two dozen Iranian companies and individuals after Tehran tested a ballistic missile.
Ahead of the measure, Trump tweeted that Iran’s leaders “should have been thankful for the terrible deal the U.S. made with them!”
The U.S. president has denounced the July 2015 nuclear accord between world powers and Iran a “disaster.” The deal imposed curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.
Earlier on February 7, Iranian President Hassan Rohani said that, despite what Trump thinks, the nuclear agreement was a “win-win agreement.”
“The new U.S. president reads the text of the nuclear deal but cannot accept it,” Rohani said in a February 7 speech broadcast live on state television. “He says this is the worst deal in history.”
But the Iranian president said the agreement could be used “as an example for other talks to bring stability and security to the region.”
On February 6, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on “responsible” countries to follow the U.S. president’s lead.
The United States and Israel say Iran’s January 29 ballistic-missile launch defied a 2015 UN Security Council resolution calling on Tehran not to test nuclear-capable missiles. Iran denies that.
Trump’s blunt statement on Iran deal acknowledged by Khamanei, backed by Israel’s Netanyahu added by World Tribune on
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