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The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced Tuesday that the US presidential elections “will not affect” Iran’s political approach to the United States at all.
In a televised address on the Prophet’s birthday, Khamenei attacked France again in the case of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, which were published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
He said: “With regard to the United States, we follow a reasonable, calculated and specific policy. This policy cannot change as people change” in Washington.
He added: “Today is the day of the elections in the United States. Things can happen, but they do not concern us. Our policy is specific and the change of faces will not affect our policy at all.”
On Tuesday, Americans will go to the polls to elect their new president. This year in Iran coincides with the 41st anniversary of the US hostage crisis that erupted on November 4, 1979, after the assault on the US embassy in Tehran.
The operation ended 444 days after the release of the 52 Americans, caused a national commotion in the United States and caused the breakdown of diplomatic relations between Washington and the Islamic Republic, and continues to poison relations between the two countries.
Iran and the United States have been on the brink of war since June 2019, in a context of tension in the Gulf and the Iranian international nuclear agreement concluded in Vienna in 2015.
In 2018, outgoing US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from this agreement and pursued a policy of “maximum pressure” on the Islamic Republic by imposing economic sanctions that plunged the Iranian economy into a severe recession.
– ‘Rude fact’ –
In response, Iran began in May 2019 to abandon most of the major commitments it made in Vienna.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent, announced that he intends, if he wins, to propose “to Iran a credible way to return to diplomacy” with the goal of getting the United States to rejoin the Vienna Agreement.
In his speech, Khamenei spoke again about the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that have been sparking anti-French demonstrations for several days in Muslim countries.
The demonstrations condemn the statements of French President Emmanuel Macron, who vigorously defended the right to publish these cartoons in the name of freedom of expression, after an Islamist in mid-October beheaded a French teacher who showed his students the published cartoons by Charlie Hebdo newspaper.
Khamenei asked: “Why do we see the president of the republic, the government and other countries united in defense of a cartoon?”
He said: “It is clear that there is an organization behind this issue (…). It is a political issue: a country that defends cruel action.”
Referring to the PMOI, the banned opposition movement in Iran that has been active in the Paris region for years, Khamenei criticized the French government for “linking this issue with freedom of expression” while at the same time providing a “haven for the most brutal and terrible terrorists. “
