Khamenei: Iran will support anyone who strikes at Israel
Supreme leader says any US attempts to use nuclear agreement to influence Iran will fail
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will support anyone who strikes against Israel and the “Zionist regime,” and again warned the US against any diplomatic efforts to sway Iran’s policies.
“Iran fully supports resistance in the region, especially the resistance in Palestine, and will support anyone who struggles against Israel and strikes at the Zionist regime,” the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Khamenei as telling top Iranian military generals and officials.
Khamenei urged the country’s armed forces on Thursday to “create such might and power that enemies don’t even dare think about aggression against the country’s borders,” Fars reported.
It was unclear how Khamenei intended for the military to become stronger, and he did not specify the identity of the enemies who would attack the country’s borders.
Khamenei repeated comments he made in the past regarding the nuclear agreement signed in early July in Vienna, that the world – and especially the United States – should not expect the deal to become a means to influence Iran.
“Washington imagined that it could use this agreement whose fate is not yet clear — as its final approval is not yet a definite fact neither in Iran nor the US — to find a way to wield influence in Iran; and this was their intention,” the ayatollah said, according to Fars. But “we closed this path, and we will definitely keep it closed,” he added.
Khamenei said Iran would stand fast against any ostensible US plans to make countries in the Middle East break up into smaller entities.
“They seek to disintegrate the regional states and create small and subordinate countries, but God willing this will not happen,” he warned. “Disintegration of Iraq and Syria, if they can, is the clear policy of the Americans, but the territorial integrity of the regional states, Iraq and Syria is highly important to us,” he added.
“We will not allow the US to influence (our) economy, or politics or culture. We will stand against such penetration with all our power — that is, thank God, at a high level today,” Khamenei said.
