Ayatollah Khamenei Deplores US Suspicious Role in Turkey Coup Attempt
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – If speculations about Washington’s role in a recent failed coup in Turkey prove to be correct, the US will be involved in another major scandal, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said.
“There is intense speculation in Turkey’s recent events that the coup was carried out with Americans’ planning and assistance, and if confirmed, it will mark a big scandal for the US,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in an address to a huge gathering of Iranian people in Tehran on Monday.
Washington’s hostile plots and interference are not confined to Iran, the Leader stressed, adding that the US is “opposed to Islam and Islamic tendencies and that is why they stage a coup in Turkey, in which there are Islamic tendencies.”
The coup was crushed in Turkey and the US became obnoxious in the eyes of the Turkish people, Imam Khamenei added, noting that Americans are on the wane in other places like Iraq and Syrian, too.
Earlier in July, Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan’s government foiled the coup by a faction in the armed forces. There are speculations that the coup plotters have had links with the US.
Elsewhere in the address, Ayatollah Khamenei referred to the US as the party that either creates or escalates conflicts in the region, stressing that regional countries are capable enough to deal with the region’s problems.
“We… remind the regional governments that the US is not trustworthy and considers the Arab governments as tools to preserve the Zionist regime (of Israel) and fulfill its arrogant policies,” the Leader underscored.
Ayatollah Khamenei further slammed the revelation of overt relations between the Saudi government and the Zionist regime as a stab in the back of the Islamic community, saying the US again has had a role in such a grave sin and betrayal.
As regards the US obstructive measures in the implementation of a comprehensive nuclear deal between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany), Ayatollah Khamenei said the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), provided another example confirming that the US is unreliable.
Enumerating cases of the US breach of the deal, the Leader said the cruel anti-Iran sanctions were supposed to be terminated all at once, but Washington is now talking about gradual easing of sanctions.
The experience of JCPOA made it clear that negotiation with the US on other regional issues would be a “lethal poison”, the Leader underscored, saying one could not trust the US on any issue.
Ayatollah Khamenei went on to say that negotiation with the US government would entail deviation from the road to progress, making successive concessions and bowing to the language of force and violation of commitments.
Iran and the six countries on July 14, 2015, reached a conclusion over the text of the JCPOA after some two years of diplomatic talks.
The 159-page accord took effect in January 2016 and was supposed to terminate the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran all at once, but its implementation has been hampered mainly due to US policies.