Iran’s supreme leader says US seeks Iran’s ‘obedience,’ rejects direct talks with Washington

Tehran, Aug 25 (IANS) Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that the United States confronts Iran because it wants the country to be “obedient,” a demand he called “offensive” and vowed the nation would resist.

Speaking in Tehran, on Sunday, Khamenei rejected calls for direct negotiations with Washington and said US hostility has been consistent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the official news agency IRNA.

He referred to a June 13 attack on Iran, saying that US-linked groups met in a European capital the next day to discuss a “post-Islamic Republic” order, even proposing a monarch. Those efforts, he said, were thwarted by the resilience of the Iranian people and state institutions.

The rare Israeli and US attacks in June, which targeted key nuclear sites and prompted Iranian retaliation, were designed to destabilise the Islamic republic, Khamenei argued.

He said that a day after “Iran was attacked” by Israel at the start of the war, “American agents” met in Europe “to discuss what government should rule Iran after the Islamic republic”.

Khamenei urged domestic unity and support for President Masoud Pezeshkian, warning that Iran’s adversaries were now seeking to stir divisions at home.

He also condemned Israel’s campaign in Gaza, called on Western states to halt support for it, and praised actions by Yemen’s Houthi movement against Israel as justified.

Relations between Tehran and Washington were cut off after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the resulting hostage crisis at the US embassy. Since then, Washington has imposed multiple waves of sanctions on Tehran, most recently due to its nuclear program.

–IANS

int/rs