\u201cIranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING\u2013TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!,\u201d says Trump on Truth Social
\n WASHINGTON
\nUS President Donald Trump urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting and said help was on the way, without giving details, as Iran\u2019s government tackled the biggest demonstrations in years.
\n\u201cIranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING\u2013TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY,\u201d Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding he had canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the \u201csenseless killing\u201d of protesters stopped.
\nThe unrest, sparked by dire economic conditions, has posed the biggest internal challenge to Iran\u2019s rulers for at least three years and has come at a time of intensifying international pressure after Israeli and US strikes last year.
\nAn Iranian official, speaking to Reuters, said that people he called terrorists were behind the deaths of both protesters and security personnel. The official, who declined to be named, did not give a breakdown of who had been killed.
\nOn Monday evening, Trump announced 25% import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran \u2014 a major oil exporter. Trump has also said more military action is among options he is weighing to punish Iran over the crackdown, saying earlier this month \u201cwe are locked and loaded\u201d.
\nTehran has not yet responded publicly to Trump\u2019s announcement of the tariffs, but it was swiftly criticised by China. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and India among its other top trading partners.
\nRussia condemns \u2018subversive external interference\u2019
\nRussia condemned what it described as \u201csubversive external interference\u201d in Iran\u2019s internal politics, saying on Tuesday that US threats of new military strikes against the country were \u201ccategorically unacceptable.\u201d
\n\u201cThose 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,\u201d the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
\nDespite the protests, which come at a particularly vulnerable moment for authorities, given the scale of economic problems, and years of external pressure, there are as yet no signs of fracture in the security elite that could bring an end to the system in power since the 1979 Revolution.
\nHowever, underscoring the international uncertainty over what comes next in Iran, which has been one of the dominant powers across the Middle East for decades, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believed the government would fall.
\n\u201cI assume that we are now witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime,\u201d he said, adding that if it had to maintain power through violence, \u201cit is effectively at its end\u201d.
\nHe did not expand on whether this forecast was based on intelligence or other assessments.
\nIranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi dismissed Merz\u2019s criticisms, accusing Berlin of double standards and saying he had \u201cobliterated any shred of credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING\u2013TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!,\u201d says Trump on Truth Social WASHINGTON US President Donald Trump urged Iranians on Tuesday to keep protesting and said help was on the way, without giving details, as Iran\u2019s government tackled the biggest demonstrations in years. \u201cIranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING\u2013TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-525453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n