Tehran responded late on Sunday to US President Donald Trump’s tweet in the Persian language, Farsi, expressing support for Saturday’s protests in Iran.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that the US president is not entitled to dishonor the ancient Persian language.
In a tweet on Sunday, he wrote:
“Hands and tongues smeared with threatening, sanctioning and terrorizing the #Iranian nation, are not entitled to dishonor the ancient #Persian_language. By the way, are you actually "standing by" millions of Iranians whose hero you just assassinated or "standing against" them?!”
Meanwhile, Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Abbas Salehi tweeted that the Persian language is a symbol of Iranian culture, and attacked the hypocrisy of Trump’s first threatening to target Iran's cultural sites and then attempting to speak with Iranians in the Persian language.
Earlier, Donald Trump tweeted his support for Iranian protesters both in English and in Farsi after initially peaceful demonstrations in response to Iran's unintentional downing of a Ukrainian jet quickly took a violent turn.
On 12 January the US President tweeted:
“To the brave, long-suffering people of Iran: I've stood with you since the beginning of my Presidency, and my Administration will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely, and are inspired by your courage.”
Before that, Trump took to Twitter to warn the Iranian authorities against "killing protesters".
On Saturday, media reports emerged of protests in Iran against those responsible for the catastrophic accidental downing of a Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 that claimed the life of all 176 passengers and crew.
A peaceful gathering of hundreds of students outside the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran to honour those killed in the fatal crash resulted in a rally, with protesters calling for the ouster of senior government officials and demonstratively tearing down the portrait of slain Gen. Qasem Soleimani, killed in a US targeted drone strike on 3 January.
The jetliner crashed early Wednesday mere hours after Iran launched missile attacks on two Iraqi military bases housing American troops. The attacks were a response to the US airstrike that killed Iranian General Qasem Soleimani days earlier.
On Saturday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted to downing Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 by mistake, confusing the plane with a cruise missile. Iran had previously maintained the incident was caused by technical error.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said the US’s decision to kill Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani was a triggering point that led to the tragedy.
“Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster,” he tweeted late Friday.