US President Donald Trump has, in a tweeted message, supported protesters in Iran who were angry at the governments handling of the aftermath of a plane crash last week.
Protesters, mostly students, gathered outside the Amir Kabir and Sharif universities in Tehran late Saturday after Iranian armed forces headquarters issued a statement clarifying circumstances surrounding the crash of a Ukraine International Airlines plane on January 8 which killed 176 people on board.
The statement said the Boeing 737-800, on its way to Kiev and ultimately bound for Canadas Toronto, had been shot down accidentally hours after Iran fired missiles at two American military bases in neighboring Iraq early on Wednesday.
The demonstrators expressed their anger over the conduct of the officials regarding the downing of the aircraft and the three-day delay in releasing the facts to the public.
Trump was quick to take to Twitter on Saturday, saying in both Farsi and English that his "administration will continue to stand with" the protesters.
One Twitterer responded by saying that Trump cannot claim to support Iranians after he had imposed sanctions targeting them.
Another one said that a president directly speaking to a nation shows "he is encouraging demonstrations and other destabilizing activity."
A Twitter user spoke of her friend who was ill and died because of Trumps boycott on drugs, calling on the US to leave the Middle East.
John Pavlovitz, an author, reacted by saying that Iranians and Americans believe Trump is "a global moral cancer."
Tim Anderson, a writer and an internationalist, called Trumps remarks "fake crocodile tears," saying, he has imposed sanctions on Iran and after assassinating their countrys top general, threatened to destroy Irans cultural heritage.
Last week, Trump claimed that his military would hit "very important" targets related to Iran if the Iranians want to take retaliatory action against the US for the assassination of a senior military commander.
"We have ... targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran," said Trump in a Saturday tweet while making a reference to the occupation of the former US embassy in Tehran in 1979.
The threat came after Iranian authorities said they would show a harsh response to the US strikes that killed Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Irans elite Quds force, and a number of Iraqi anti-terror fighters, in Baghdad early on Friday, January 3.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, British Ambassador Robert Macaire was briefly arrested by security forces over his presence at the site of a protest in Tehran.
Dominic Raab, the UKs foreign secretary, has criticized the arrest as a "flagrant violation of international law.
Irans Foreign Ministry has said it is awaiting a formal report by the police that would include a detailed account of the British ambassadors detention.
LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/12659
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