Source: Press TV
President Hassan Rouhani says the United States wants to cause insecurity in Iran with the help of "small mercenary states" in the region, but that the Islamic Republic is ready to confront them. Rouhani's remarks in Tehran Sunday before leaving for New York to attend the UN General Assembly came a day after terrorists attacked a military parade in Ahvaz in southwest Iran, killing 25 people.
Ahvaz Terror Attack
(collage by Iranian daily Sazandegi)
"Americans want Iran to have no security. They want to create chaos and
turmoil and set the conditions so that they can return to the country one day
and take charge as they did in the old days, but none of these is possible," the
president said.
"These are unattainable dreams and America will never achieve any of these
goals," Rouhani added.
He touched on Washington's hostile policies toward Iran, including its
withdrawal from an international nuclear deal with Tehran under "delusional
excuses," putting a nation under strain.
"Our people will resist and the government has prepared itself for this
confrontation," he said, adding that everyone will "join hands to put these
difficult times behind us with the grace of God."
"The Americans will regret what they did because they made a very wrong choice",
the president added.
Source: Iranian daily Farheekhtegan
Rouhani also said the US is provoking regional states against Iran, citing the
terrorist attack in Ahvaz, which also left scores of people, including women and
children, injured.
"It is entirely clear to us who did it, who they are and where they are
affiliated to," he said.
"The sponsor of all these small mercenary countries in the region is America.
Americans are provoking them and providing the right conditions for them to
commit these crimes," Rouhani added.
Source: Iranian daily Esfahan Emrooz
The president said these acts will have no effect on the will and direction of
the Iranian nation which "has stood up and resisted much bigger crimes."
Terrorists opened fire on people watching a military parade held to mark the
invasion of Iran by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.
The Saudi-backed al-Ahvaziya terror group, which is based in Europe, has claimed
responsibility for the assault.
Headline by Iranian daily Jomleh:
"Saudi Arabia's footprint in Ahvaz's bloody incident"
Rouhani said as long as Saddam was alive, the group used to be a mercenary of
the former Ba'ath regime, but they switched their fealty to a "southern Persian
Gulf state" which has undertaken to provide the terrorists with funds, weapons
and political assistance.
Members of the terror group, he said, had lived inside Iraq for years but Iran
granted them amnesty after the end of the Iraqi-imposed war in 1988.
Nevertheless, "they have never regretted or stopped their crimes," he added.
Source: Iranian daily Mardomsalari
Rouhani described the Saturday attack, especially in a city which "valiantly
withstood eight years" of attacks by Saddam's forces, a "big crime" which will
not go unpunished.
"Iran's answer to these crimes will be within the framework of law and the
country's national interests," he said as he paid tribute to the residents of
Ahvaz.
"In the early months of the war, there were days when cannonballs would smash
into the streets of Ahvaz and I saw them, but the residents did not evacuate the
city and stayed put and resisted," he recounted.
President Rouhani leaving Tehran for New York on Sunday
(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani hit out at the US for abusing the UN which
Trump reportedly plans to use for a series of speeches to push a hard line
against Iran.
A year after he shocked his counterparts by threatening to "totally destroy"
North Korea in his inaugural UN address, Trump is expected to outline his
confrontation with Iran, global trade and his "America first" view of foreign
policy.
Trump lawyer calls for 'revolution' in Iran
Speaking in New York on Saturday, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed that
US sanctions were working in Iran and that the coercive measures could lead to a
"successful revolution."
"I don't know when we're going to overthrow them," he told a meeting of
Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group. "It could be in a few days,
months, a couple of years. But it's going to happen."
At the MEK regime change cult's Iran Uprising Summit, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani proclaims in paid address, "They will be overthrown!" He then celebrates reports of desperate Iranians seeking to sell their organs and begging for food due to US sanctions. pic.twitter.com/AEt6Pl4y5y
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) September 23, 2018
Giuliani's comments contradicted the Trump administration's pronouncements that
it was not seeking a government change in Iran.
Washington has long been supporting the MKO. In 2012, the US State Department
removed the group from its list of designated terrorist organizations.
Nevertheless, the anti-Iran grouplet is listed as a terrorist entity by much of
the international community. Its members fled Iran in 1986 for Iraq, where it
enjoyed the support of the Saddam regime.