Iranian President: "An attack on the Supreme Leader is tantamount to all-out war"

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on the 19th (local time) on social media (SNS) that "an attack on our country’s Supreme Leader is tantamount to all-out war against the Iranian state."

He wrote, "If the lives of our beloved Iranian people are filled with hardship and difficulty, one of the reasons is the long-standing hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the U.S. government and its allies."

His message appears to have been aimed at recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump about a "regime change in Iran."

In an interview with U.S. political news outlet Politico on the 17th, Trump said, "Now is the time to look for new leadership in Iran." The comment implied ending the 37-year rule of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Referring to Iranian authorities’ hardline crackdown on anti-government protests, Trump criticized him (Khamenei), saying, "As a country’s leader, his sin is that he has completely destroyed the country and used violence at a level never seen before."

The anti-government protests in Iran, which began last month and resulted in large-scale casualties, have recently eased, but Iranian authorities are shifting responsibility to external actors such as the United States and Israel.

Noh Jeong-dong, Hankyung.com reporter dong2@hankyung.com