DUBAI: Iran marked the 47th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution on Wednesday as the country’s theocracy remains under pressure, both from US President Donald Trump, who suggested sending another aircraft carrier group to the Middle East and a public angrily denouncing Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran is in the midst of negotiations with the United States over its nuclear programme, but it remains unclear if a nuclear deal will be reached. Meanwhile, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been unable for months to inspect and verify Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
In a ceremony marking the revolution anniversary, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian apologised to “all those affected” by the nationwide protests and bloody crackdown that followed it, even as he denounced unspecified “Western propaganda” surrounding the protests.
Pezeshkian said he knew the “great sorrow” felt by people in the protests and crackdown, without directly acknowledging the hand Iranian security forces had in the bloodshed. “We are ashamed before the people, and we are obligated to assist all those who were harmed in these incidents,” Pezeshkian said. “We are not seeking confrontation with the people.” Pezeshkian also insisted that his nation was “not seeking nuclear weapons... and is ready for any kind of verification.” In escalating pressure, Trump suggested a second carrier in an interview published Tuesday night as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, long an Iran hawk, visited Washington to push the US toward the strictest-possible terms in any agreement reached with Tehran in the fledgling nuclear talks. A top Iranian security official planned to visit Qatar on Wednesday after earlier travelling to Oman, which has mediated this latest round of
negotiations.