Iran urges world to condemn US threats

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Iran has urged the international community to condemn United States President Donald Trump's escalating rhetoric toward Tehran, accusing him of inciting instability and threatening military action against the country.

The renewed tensions came as Trump made an abrupt shift on his willingness to engage with Iran, leading to the latest standoff between the two countries.

In a letter to the United Nations Security Council, Iran's UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani accused the US president of openly igniting violence inside Iran, citing a social media post by Trump that explicitly called on protesters to seize Iranian institutions.

"This reckless statement explicitly encourages political destabilization, incites and invites violence, and threatens the sovereignty, territorial integrity and national security of Iran," the letter said.

"It must be understood in the context of the failure of the 12-day war of aggression against Iran in June 2025, and as an integral component of a broader regime-change policy."

In addition, Iran's UN mission said, "US fantasies and policies are rooted in regime change, with sanctions, threats, engineered unrest and chaos serving to manufacture a pretext for military intervention."

It insisted that this playbook would "fail again".

China on Wednesday voiced its opposition to external interference in Iran's internal affairs.

"China supports and hopes that the Iranian government and people can overcome the current difficulties and safeguard national stability," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a news conference in Beijing.

"At the same time, we oppose external forces interfering in a country's internal affairs and do not support the use or threat of force in international relations," she said.

On Tuesday, Trump said he had canceled talks with Iranian officials amid the recent deadly protests in Iran, telling Iranians that "help is on its way". The move signaled that Washington is gearing up for targeted action or policy measures against Tehran.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, hit back at Trump's latest threat, in which the US leader urged Iranian protesters to "save the names of the killers and abusers".

In a scathing social media post, Larijani wrote, "We declare the names of the main killers of the people of Iran: No 1, Trump; No 2, (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu."

Russia also condemned the "subversive external interference" in Iran's internal politics, saying US threats of new military strikes against the country were "categorically unacceptable".

"Those who plan to use externally inspired unrest as a pretext for repeating the aggression against Iran committed in June 2025 must be aware of the disastrous consequences of such actions for the situation in the Middle East and global international security," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Iran's Public Security Police Chief Seyed Majid Feiz Jafari said on Tuesday that his forces had detained 297 "thugs" during the recent "riots" in the country, seizing more than 30 different kinds of weapons and remarkable amounts of explosives from them.

Ataollah Mohajerani, who served as Iran's culture minister from 1997 to 2000, dismissed the latest US threat as nothing more than a recycled tactic.

"From the outset of our revolution to this day, we have endured repeated US attempts to target Iran," he told Al Jazeera.

He also dismissed Western charges of a "brutal crackdown" on protesters by the Iranian government, saying that things only turned violent after more than a week of civil unrest, blaming outside influence over armed groups inside Iran for the deaths that have occurred.

Washington has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action. Randy Fine, a US legislator close to Trump, even suggested that the US abduct Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

A senior Iranian official said on Wednesday that Tehran will strike US military bases in the Middle East, "from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to Turkiye", in case of a US attack.

Some personnel have been advised to leave the US military's Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar by Wednesday evening, three unnamed diplomats told Reuters.

cuihaipei@chinadaily.com.cn