Iran's Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, on Friday accused the United States and Israel of fuelling the ongoing anti-regime protests in the country, AFP reported.
Araghchi also dismissed the possibility of direct foreign military intervention after the US warned Iran’s leadership against crackdowns on demonstrators.
"This is what the Americans and Israelis have stated, that they are directly intervening in the protests in Iran," said Araghchi during a visit to Lebanon.
"They are trying to transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones," he said, adding that "regarding the possibility of seeing military intervention against Iran, we believe there is a low possibility of this because their previous attempts were total failures".
Araghchi’s comments came hours after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei downplayed the widespread protests in his country, claiming they are driven by fringe elements.
In a statement on Iranian television, Khamenei declared that Tehran "will not retreat even a millimeter from its principles," emphasizing Iran's firm stance against external pressures.
Attacking US President Donald Trump, he warned, "The US President should focus on his own country's problems."
"Some of those inciting the riots want to please the American President by vandalizing public property. The united Iranian people will defeat all enemies," he added.
"The US President should know that all dictators fell at the peak of their power. The hands of the US are stained with the blood of more than 1,000 Iranian leaders and innocent civilians," Khamenei concluded.
On Thursday, Trump reiterated his warning that the US would hit Iran “very hard" if its leadership kills protesters.
In an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump said, “What they've done in the past, they've started shooting the hell out of people. And all of a sudden, people without any weapons whatsoever standing there and get machine guns, gunning them down, or they grab, take them to prisons and then hang them and kill them. So they played rough. And I said, if they do that, we're going to hit them very hard. We're going to hit them hard."
Trump added, “We're ready to do it. If they do that, we're going to hit them hard. And so far, for the most part, there's been some of it, but for the most part, they haven't. There have been people killed. Some of them, the crowds are so big that some of them have had, were stomped on. Literally. It was terrible."
“We'll see what happens. There's so many people protesting. Nobody's ever seen anything like what's happening right now. But I have put Iran on notice that if they start shooting at them..if they do anything bad to these people, we're going to hit them very hard."
(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)