U.S. Tells UN All Options On Table, Iran Warns It Will Respond To Any Aggression
UNITED NATIONS, January 15 (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the U.N. Security Council on Thursday that the United States stands with the “brave people of Iran” and that President Donald Trump “has made clear that all options are on the table to stop the carnage.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where thousands have reportedly been killed in protests against religious rule.
But on Thursday, Trump adopted a wait-and-see attitude, saying he had been told the killings were tone down and that he believed there were no current plans for large-scale executions.
Speaking at the Security Council meeting requested by Washington, Waltz said, “President Trump is a man of action, not endless speeches like we see at the United Nations. He made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the massacre.”
IRAN SAID IT WILL RESPOND TO ANY ATTACK
Waltz rejected Iran’s claims that the protests were a “foreign plot to herald military action.”
“Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever and so the Iranian people are pushing this lie because of their power in the streets. They are afraid. They are afraid of their own people,” Waltz said.
Iran’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Gholamhossein Darzi, said Iran was not seeking escalation or conflict and accused Waltz of resorting to “lies, distortions of facts, and a deliberate disinformation campaign to conceal his country’s direct role in driving unrest into violence in Iran.”
“However, any act of aggression – direct or indirect – will be met with a decisive, proportionate, and lawful response,” he told the Security Council. “This is not a threat, but an expression of legal reality,” he said.
Russia’s UN Ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, accused the United States of convening the Security Council to “justify blatant aggression and interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state” and threatening to solve “the Iranian problem in its favorite way: through attacks aimed at overthrowing an undesirable regime.”
“We strongly urge the hotheads in Washington and other capitals to come to their senses,” he said.
Senior UN official Martha Pobee told the council that United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “called for maximum restraint at this sensitive moment and urged all actors to refrain from any action that could lead to further casualties or ignite broader regional tensions.”
Denmark’s UN Ambassador Christina Markus Lassen told the Security Council: “Over and over again we hear Iranians raising their voices loud and clear for a better life.”
“For too long, leaders in Tehran have not heeded this call. It is now time for the Iranian government to finally listen and respond to the will of its people through peaceful means. We call on them to start today.”
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Editing by Rod Nickel and Alistair Bell)
