Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump “lied” about his intentions to ensure peace in the Middle East and asked Washington to leave the region.
Khamenei’s comments came the day after Trump concluded a four-day tour of Gulf allies — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — which was followed quickly by the start of a new Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.
“The recent remarks of the U.S. president during his visit to the region are a disgrace to the speaker and a disgrace to the American nation,” Khamenei said during a public event Saturday in Tehran, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA.
“Trump said he wanted to use power for peace; he lied,” Khamenei said. Instead, the theocratic leader said, Trump and his administration “used power to massacre Gaza, to incite war wherever they could, and to support their own mercenaries.”
Khamenei reiterated his threats against Israel, calling it “the Zionist regime,” and “a dangerous and malignant cancerous tumor in this region [that] must and will be uprooted.”
“The U.S. must and will leave this region,” he added.
While Iran’s rhetoric against the U.S. and its allies persists, Tehran and Washington are negotiating a new deal to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to avoid large-scale conflict in the Middle East.
Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Khamenei, told NBC this week that Iran would commit to never making nuclear weapons, eliminating stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, enriching uranium only to lower levels needed for civilian use and allowing international inspectors to supervise it in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions on Iran.
However, Trump wants to avoid a deal with Iran that resembles the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was reached during Barack Obama’s presidency and included the European Union and China. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. The following year, Iran stopped complying with the broken deal.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Saturday that the country won’t renounce its right to a peaceful nuclear program, but guaranteed good faith in negotiations with the U.S.
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