Iranian FM Araghchi calls Trump's intervention threats 'reckless and dangerous'

Iran’s foreign minister has condemned Donald Trump’s warning that the United States would intervene if peaceful protesters in Iran were killed, calling the remarks “reckless and dangerous”.

Abbas Araghchi was responding to comments by the US president, who said Washington “will come to their rescue” if demonstrators protesting Iran’s worsening economic conditions were violently suppressed. In a brief social media post, Trump wrote: “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Araghchi said Iran’s armed forces were on standby and “know exactly where to aim” if the country were attacked.

At least eight people are reported to have died during the week-long protests as of Saturday morning, according to media and rights groups.

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On Friday, Trump warned: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” He did not specify what form any US action might take. The US has previously carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, prompting a retaliatory Iranian strike on a US base in Qatar.

In a post on X, Araghchi accused Trump of hypocrisy, writing: “Given President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard within US borders, he of all people should know that criminal attacks on public property cannot be tolerated.” He added that Iran would “forcefully reject any interference in their internal affairs."

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An Iranian police spokesman said security forces would not allow what he described as “enemies” to turn “unrest into chaos”, as protests spread to cities and towns across the country. Running clashes have been reported between demonstrators and security forces.

The unrest began in Tehran, where shopkeepers protested another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market. By Tuesday, university students had joined the demonstrations, which expanded to several cities with chants directed against Iran’s clerical leadership.

Two people were killed during clashes in the south-western city of Lordegan, according to the semi-official Fars news agency and the human rights group Hengaw, which identified them as protesters Ahmad Jalil and Sajjad Valamanesh.

Fars also reported that three people were killed in Azna and one in Kouhdasht, both in western Iran, without specifying whether they were protesters or security personnel. One death was reported in Fuladshahr in central Iran, and another in Marvdasht in the south.

The protests are the most widespread since nationwide demonstrations in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini after she was accused by morality police of not wearing her veil properly, though the current unrest has not reached the same scale.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said he would listen to the “legitimate demands” of protesters, while Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad warned that any attempt to create instability would be met with a “decisive response”.

Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir-Saeid Iravani, has called on the UN Security Council to condemn Trump’s remarks. In a letter to the UN secretary-general and the council’s president on Friday, he wrote: “Iran will exercise its rights decisively and proportionately. The United States of America bears full responsibility for any consequences arising from these unlawful threats and any ensuing escalation.”