The Latest: Iran supreme leader critical of FM in nuke deal
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The Latest on increased tensions between the U.S. and Iran (all times local):
10:55 p.m.
As tensions with the U.S. mount, Iran’s supreme leader has said the country’s president and foreign minister didn’t act as he wished in implementing the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
The comments Wednesday night, posted on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s official website, are the first time he’s blamed both President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif by name in his concerns about the deal.
Khamenei said: “In some extent, I did not believe in the way that the nuclear deal was implemented. Many times I reminded both the president and the foreign minister.”
Khamenei has final say on all matters of state. His remarks show the internal pressure both Rouhani and Zarif now face amid the U.S. tensions.
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1 p.m.
A prominent reformist lawmaker in Iran has reportedly said the Islamic Republic “under no circumstance” will enter a war with the U.S., either directly or through proxy forces.
Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh’s comments on Wednesday, reported by the semi-official ILNA news agency, come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington a year after President Donald Trump pulled America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
Falahatpisheh was quoted as saying that “under no circumstance will we enter a war.”
He added: “No group can announce that it has entered a proxy war from Iran’s side.”
That comes as Yemen’s Iranian-allied Houthi rebels have launched drone attacks on Saudi Arabia amid the heightened tensions. The United Arab Emirates also says four oil tankers off its eastern coast were sabotaged.
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