Iran marked the 47th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic Revolution on Wednesday as the country’s theocracy remains under pressure, both from US President Donald Trump, who suggested sending another aircraft carrier group to the Middle East and a public angrily denouncing Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran is in the midst of negotiations with the United States over its nuclear programme, but it remains unclear if a nuclear deal will be reached. Meanwhile, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has been unable for months to inspect and verify Iran’s nuclear stockpile.
In a ceremony marking the revolution anniversary, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian apologised to “all those affected” by the nationwide protests and bloody crackdown that followed it, even as he denounced unspecified “Western propaganda” surrounding the protests.
Pezeshkian said he knew the “great sorrow” felt by people in the protests and crackdown, without directly acknowledging the hand Iranian security forces had in the bloodshed.
“We are ashamed before the people, and we are obligated to assist all those who were harmed in these incidents,” Pezeshkian said. “We are not seeking confrontation with the people.”
Pezeshkian also insisted that his nation was “not seeking nuclear weapons… and is ready for any kind of verification.”
In escalating pressure, Trump suggested a second carrier in an interview published Tuesday night as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, long an Iran hawk, visited Washington to push the US toward the strictest-possible terms in any agreement reached with Tehran in the fledgling nuclear talks.
A top Iranian security official planned to visit Qatar on Wednesday after earlier travelling to Oman, which has mediated this latest round of negotiations.
On Iranian state television, authorities broadcast images of tens of thousands of people taking to the streets across the country on Wednesday to support the theocracy and its 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But on Tuesday night, as government-sponsored fireworks lit the darkened sky, witnesses heard shouts from people’s homes in the Iranian capital, Tehran, of “Death to the dictator!”
Commemoration comes under the crackdown
In the streets, people waved images of Khamenei and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, alongside Iranian and Palestinian flags. Some chanted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Among Iran’s 85 million people, there is a hard-line element of support for Iran’s theocracy, including members of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which crucially put down the protests last month in a bloody suppression that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained. Others often take part in demonstrations as they are government employees or to enjoy the carnival atmosphere of a government-sponsored holiday.
As the commemoration took place, senior Iranian security official Ali Larijani left Oman for Qatar. That Mideast nation hosts a major US military installation that Iran attacked in June after the US bombed Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day Iran-Israel war.
Qatar has been a key negotiator in the past with Iran, with which it shares a massive offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf.
Speaking to the Russian state channel RT, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran still does “not have full trust for the Americans.”
“Last time we negotiated, last June, we were in the middle of negotiation then they decided to attack us, and that was a very, very bad experience for us,” Iran’s top diplomat said. “We need to make sure that that scenario is not repeated, and this is mostly up to America.”
Despite that concern, Araghchi said it could be possible “to come to a better deal than Obama,” referencing the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers Iran reached when former US President Barack Obama was in office. Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.
Trump suggests sending another carrier to the Middle East
The United States has moved the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, ships and warplanes to the Middle East to pressure Iran into an agreement and have the firepower necessary to strike the Islamic Republic should Trump choose to do so.
Already, US forces shot down a drone they said got too close to the Lincoln and came to the aid of a US-flagged ship that Iranian forces tried to stop in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf.
Trump told the news website Axios that he was considering sending a second carrier to the region, noting, “We have an armada that is heading there and another one might be going.”
It remains unclear which carrier could go. The USS George HW Bush has left Norfolk, Virginia, according to US Navy Institute News. The USS Gerald R. Ford remains in the Caribbean after the US military raid that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
