The pushback comes after the US president accused Tehran\u2019s leadership of being \u2018corrupt and ineffective\u2019
\n Tehran, Iran
\nIran\u2019s political and military leaders are pointing the finger back at Donald Trump after the United States president sharpened his rhetoric during his first major tour of the Middle East.
\nIn a speech to a group of teachers gathered for a state ceremony in Tehran on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some of Trump\u2019s comments were not even worth responding to.
\n\u201cThe level of those remarks is so low that they are a disgrace for the one who uttered them and a disgrace to the American nation,\u201d he said, to chants of \u201cDeath to America\u201d and others from the crowd.
\nKhamenei added that Trump \u201clied\u201d when he said he wants to use power towards peace, as Washington has backed \u201cmassacring\u201d Palestinians and others across the region. He called Israel a \u201cdangerous cancerous tumour\u201d that must be \u201cuprooted\u201d.
\nMeanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also told a gathering of navy officers on Saturday that Trump is extending a message of peace while threatening destruction at the same time as backing Israel\u2019s \u201cgenocide\u201d in the Gaza Strip.
\n\u201cWhich one of this president\u2019s words should we believe? His message of peace, or his message of massacre of human beings?\u201d the Iranian president said, pointing out that Trump sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a move that was internationally criticised.
\nThe statements came after Trump used his Middle East tour \u2013 during which he signed huge deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates \u2013 to heap praise on Arab leaders neighbouring Iran and blasting the leadership in Tehran.
\nThe US president told Arab leaders they were developing their infrastructure while Iran\u2019s \u201clandmarks are collapsing into rubble\u201d after its theocratic establishment replaced a monarchy in a 1979 revolution.
\nHe said Iran\u2019s leaders have \u201cmanaged to turn green farmland into dry deserts\u201d as a result of corruption and mismanagement, and pointed out that Iranians are experiencing power outages several hours a day.
\nThe blackouts, a result of a years-long energy crisis that is hurting Iran\u2019s already strained economy, are expected to linger for the rest of this year as well, according to Iranian authorities.
\nThe largest associations of the mining, steel and cement industries in Iran on Saturday wrote a joint letter to Pezeshkian, urgently requesting him to review a 90 percent electricity use restriction imposed on the critical sectors.
\nTrump, who hailed Syria\u2019s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa and lifted sanctions on Damascus, also took aim at Iran\u2019s regional policy.
\nHe described Tehran\u2019s support for the fallen establishment of President Bashar al-Assad as a cause of \u201cmisery and death\u201d and regional destabilisation.
\nIran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described the US president\u2019s remarks as \u201cdeceptive\u201d, telling state media on Friday it was the US that hampered Iran through sanctions and military threats while backing Israel and attacking Syria.
\nParliament chief Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who was addressing an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) conference in Indonesia, said Trump\u2019s remarks showed he was \u201cliving in a delusion\u201d.
\nHossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), addressed Trump directly on Friday and said even though Iran has beautiful landmarks, \u201cwe take pride in the elevation of character, identity, culture, and Islam\u201d.
\nThe sharp rhetoric in response to Trump\u2019s latest controversial comments come days after he teased that he may start calling the \u201cPersian Gulf\u201d the \u201cArabian Gulf\u201d soon.
\nThis angered Iranians across the board, prompting criticism of any attempt to rename the key waterway from average citizens online, authorities, local media, and even some pro-Trump Iranians outside the country who have been advocating for US sanctions and regime change.<\/p>\n
Scepticism over Iran-US deal
\nBoth Iran and the US say they would prefer an agreement that would serve to quickly de-escalate tensions surrounding Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, despite the latest war of words.
\nBut after four rounds of negotiations mediated by Oman, any prospective deal \u2013 which would lift sanctions in exchange for making sure Iran would not have a nuclear bomb \u2013 still appears to face significant hurdles.
\nTrump said Tehran has been handed a proposal to rapidly advance towards a deal, but Iran\u2019s Araghchi on Friday said no written proposal was produced yet amid \u201cconfusing and contradictory\u201d rhetoric from Washington.
\n\u201cMark my words: there is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes: a right afforded to all other NPT signatories, too,\u201d he wrote in a post on X, in reference to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
\nKazem Gharibabadi, a senior nuclear negotiator, on Friday rejected reports by Western media outlets that Iran may agree to fully halt its enrichment of uranium for the remainder of the Trump presidency to build trust.
\n\u201cThe right to enrich is our absolute red line! No halt to enrichment is acceptable.\u201d
\nTrump in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from a landmark nuclear accord signed between Iran and world powers three years earlier, imposing the harshest sanctions yet by the US that have only intensified during the latest negotiations.
\nThe nuclear deal set a 3.67 percent enrichment rate with first-generation centrifuges for civilian use in Iran, in exchange for lifting United Nations sanctions. Iran is now enriching up to 60 percent and has enough fissile material for multiple bombs, but has made no effort to build one yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The pushback comes after the US president accused Tehran\u2019s leadership of being \u2018corrupt and ineffective\u2019 Tehran, Iran Iran\u2019s political and military leaders are pointing the finger back at Donald Trump after the United States president sharpened his rhetoric during his first major tour of the Middle East. In a speech to a group of teachers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-479218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n