US President Donald Trump on Friday warned Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to be “very careful with his words” following his sermon, in which he called trump a “clown.”
Referring to Khamenei’s speech, Trump said on Twitter, that “the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe”
“Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!” he added.
Iran’s Khamenei, led the main weekly Muslim prayer on Friday for the first time since 2012, delivering a sermon in which he excoriates US leaders as “clowns” and accused European countries of negotiating in bad faith over the foundering nuclear deal.
During his sermon, Khamenei said that the demonstrations in Iran over the accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner were unrepresentative of the Iranian people, accusing Iran’s enemies of exploiting the disaster for propaganda purposes.
He also called shooting the plane as a “bitter accident” that saddened Iran, while making Iran’s enemies happy, noting that this accident should not overshadow Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s major general, Qasem Soleimani’s “sacrifice” for the country.
Commenting on Kahmenei’s speech, the protesters said it sought to downplay days of protests, adding that he did not even try to calm the people and totally ignored the protesters.
Following the current escalations between Iran and European countries, the United Kingdom designated the entirety of Hezbollah as a “terrorist group,” freezing its assets, as a way to pressure the pro-Iran group.
The UK’s economic and finance ministry stated that it had designated on Friday the Iran-backed Shiite organisation Hezbollah under its Terrorism and Terrorist Financing rules, and as such its assets will be frozen.
According to the statement, the entire group are affected and freezing their assets came into force on Thursday, 16 January 2020.
Previously it was only Hezbollah’s Military Wing which was subject to asset freezing under UK government rules, but in February 2019, the British government announced that it was no longer possible for them to distinguish between the political and military wings of Hezbollah.
“It is clear the distinction between Hezbollah’s military and political wings does not exist, and by proscribing Hezbollah in all its forms, the government is sending a clear signal that its destabilising activities in the region are totally unacceptable and detrimental to the UK’s national security,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said back then, according to BBC.
