Mike Waltz (File photo)
UNITED NATIONS: The US stands by the “brave people of Iran,” and President Trump “has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter,” US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told the UN Security Council on Thursday.Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where thousands of people have been reported killed in a crackdown on the protests against clerical rule. But on Thursday, Trump adopted a wait-and-see posture, saying he had been told that the killings were easing and that he believed there was no current plan for large-scale executions.”President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the UN. He has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter,” Waltz told the security council meeting, which Washington had requested. Waltz dismissed allegations by Iran that the protests are “a foreign plot to give a precursor to military action.” “Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets. They are afraid. They are afraid of their own people,” Waltz said.Iran’s deputy UN ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi said Iran does not seek escalation or confrontation and accused Waltz of resorting “to lies, distortion of facts, and a deliberate misinformation campaign to conceal his country’s direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence.” “However, any act of aggression – direct or indirect – will be met with a decisive, proportionate, and lawful response,” he said. Russia’s UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia accused the US of convening the UNSC to “justify blatant aggression and interference in the affairs of a sovereign state” and threats to “solve the Iranian problem in its favourite way: through strikes aimed to overthrow an undesirable regime.” (This is a Reuters story)
