Shedding ‘crocodile tears’ and ‘dishonoring’ Persian language: Iranian officials blast Trump’s Farsi tweets

Officials in Tehran slammed both the language and the message of US President Donald Trump’s tweets in Farsi, in which he backed anti-government protesters in the country and claimed to be standing up for ordinary Iranians.

“Hands and tongues smeared with threatening, sanctioning and terrorizing the #Iranian nation, are not entitled to dishonor the ancient #Persian language,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi tweeted on Monday.

By the way, are you actually 'standing by' millions of Iranians whose hero you just assassinated or 'standing against' them?!

Mousavi was responding to Trump´s tweet in Persian, Iran's official language, which is also known as Farsi. The US leader backed the anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic and promised to "continue to stand" with the Iranian people.

On January 3, a US drone strike in Iraq killed high-ranking Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani, who Washington accused of plotting terrorist attacks. Soleimani's funeral procession drew massive crowds in several cities across Iran, and was attended by over a million mourners in Tehran alone. 

Trump also Farsi to call on the Iranian government “not to kill protesters” and express that it’s “totally up to” Iran to start negotiations, as he “couldn’t care less.” 

Iranian government spokesperson Ali Rabiei said that Iranians “saw how Trump was shedding crocodile tears” as he claimed to stand by them.

Rabiei recalled that Trump had threatened to bomb sites which are important to “Iranian culture” after the “assassination of the country’s most popular commander.” The official also noted that Trump slapped Tehran with sweeping sanctions which are the “root cause” of the economic problems that Iranians are facing today, including food and drug shortages.

The protesters, meanwhile, are denouncing the Iranian authorities after they admitted to having mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger airliner amid the dramatic flare-up of tensions with the US.

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