PHOTO: Revolutionary Guards deputy commander Hossein Salami addressed audience outside former US Embassy on Thursday
UPDATE 1200 GMT: Maintaining the Supreme Leader’s ban on discussions with Washington apart from implementation of the nuclear deal, Tehran Friday Prayer leader Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani has proclaimed, “Be careful US will not return through window. We need no talks with the US to solve problems.”
The cleric continued:
Enmity with US is part of our religion because that country has not the least belief in commitment. We might be in a deal with the pagans based on our lofty interests but we will not enter any deal with the US because it has forgotten humanity.
Sitting, talking and setting a date for meeting is not right. They say they will lift sanctions but they add to them. Americans explicitly speak of enmity with the Iranian nation, whose identity originates from Islam so we should not expect them to be kind.
“I announce from this podium that we can stand against the US and smash its power,” Movahedi Kermani concluded.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Using its annual commemoration of the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy, Iran’s regime warned Washington on Thursday that it may pull out of the July 2015 nuclear deal.
The Supreme Leader launched the campaign on Wednesday with a speech that also warned the Rouhani Government about a “dangerous way of thinking…that if we compromise with the US all our country’s problems will be solved”.
See Iran Daily, Nov 3: Khamenei Uses US Elections to Warn Rouhani Government
On Thursday, the regime heralded the marches of “hundreds of thousands” to commemorate Student Day and the National Day Against the Global Arrogance, with a rally outside the former US Embassy.
The Deputy Commander of the Revolutionary Guards, General Hossein Salami, told the crowd:
The US is now grappling with major crises and is no longer considered as the world’s number one power and the political will of the US cannot rule in West Asia….[The Americans] can no longer launch a direct invasion against any country, which means that the US war machine is operating without fuel.
Salami then warned of Iran’s possible withdrawal from the nuclear deal:
America should know that if it does not act upon its own commitments under the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], we will send this agreement to the museum and return to the first stage….
The Iranian nation has always been committed to its obligations, but these are not one-sided commitments. The patience of the Iranian nation is not endless….If America does not fully implement its commitments under the JCPOA, inactive centrifuges will be operationalized once again, [and] we will not stop at pre-JCPOA levels.
Outspoken moderate-conservative Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Motahari blamed “America’s actions against the Islamic Revolution” for the hostage crisis in an Instagram post on November 3, but he also criticized the length of the hostage crisis for portraying Iran with “an ISIS-like face.” He stated that prolonging the crisis “was not in the interest of the revolution or the people of Iran.” (Tasnim News Agency) (E) (ANA)
