Trump urges Iran to keep protesting, ‘help on its way’
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US President Donald Trump is urging Iranians to keep protesting and says help is on the way, without giving details, as Iran’s clerical establishment pressed its crackdown against the biggest demonstrations in years.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, adding he had canceled all meetings with Iranian officials until the “senseless killing” of protesters stopped.
The unrest, sparked by dire economic conditions, has posed the biggest internal challenge to Iran’s rulers for at least three years and has come at a time of intensifying international pressure after Israeli and US strikes last year.
Following the US president’s post, Iranian security chief Ali Larijani said on social media platform X that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were the “main killers” of the Iranian people.
An Iranian official said about 2000 people had been killed in the protests, the first time authorities have given an overall death toll from more than two weeks of nationwide unrest, though the official gave no breakdown.
US-based rights group HRANA said that of the 2003 people whose deaths it had confirmed, 1850 were protesters. It said 16,784 people had been detained, a sharp increase from the figure it gave on Monday.
On Monday evening, Trump announced 25 per cent import tariffs on products from any country doing business with Iran – a major oil exporter. Trump has also said more military action is among options he is weighing to punish Iran over the crackdown.
Tehran has not yet responded publicly to Trump’s announcement of the tariffs, but it was swiftly criticised by China. Iran, already under heavy US sanctions, exports much of its oil to China, with Turkey, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and India among its other top trading partners.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said on Monday he had continued to communicate with US special envoy Steve Witkoff during the protests and that Tehran was studying ideas proposed by Washington.
Iranian authorities have accused the US and Israel of stirring up the unrest.
Russia on Tuesday condemned what it described as “subversive external interference” in Iran’s internal politics, saying any repeat of last year’s US strikes would have “disastrous consequences” for the Middle East and international security.
Despite the protests, the economic strains, and years of external pressure, there are as yet no signs of fracture in the security elite that could bring down the clerical system in power since a 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Britain, France, Germany and Italy all summoned Iranian ambassadors in protest over the crackdown.
“The brutal actions of the Iranian regime against its own people are shocking,” the German Foreign Ministry said on social media platform X.
Underscoring international uncertainty over what comes next in Iran, which has been one of the dominant powers across the Middle East for decades, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believed the government would fall.
“I assume that we are now witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime,” he said, adding that if it had to maintain power through violence, “it is effectively at its end”.
Araqchi dismissed Merz’s criticisms, accusing Berlin of double standards and saying he had “obliterated any shred of credibility”.
The protests began on December 28 over the fall in value of the currency and have grown into wider demonstrations and calls for the fall of the clerical establishment.
Iran’s authorities have taken a dual approach, cracking down while also calling protests over economic problems legitimate.
Reuters
