Iran's Khamenei Slams Biden for Telling Bennett U.S. Has Other Options if Nuke Talks Fail
The Iranian leader said the U.S. 'ridiculed' nuclear negotiations, top official tweets in Hebrew that Biden comment 'establishes Iran's right to reciprocate'
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei slammed the Biden administration in a series of tweets Saturday after the U.S. president said he may consider "other measures" should nuclear diplomacy with Tehran fail.
"Behind the scenes of US foreign policy there lies a predatory wolf that sometimes changes into a cunning fox," wrote Khamenei on Twitter, asserting there was no difference between Biden's presidency and that of former President Donald Trump.
Khamenei went on to accuse the United States of acting "shamelessly" in regard to the 2015 nuclear deal. "They withdrew from the #JCPOA but talked as if Iran had withdrawn from it," Iran's leader said, referring to the deal, asserting that the U.S. "ridiculed the negotiations."
Earlier Saturday, a top Iranian security official accused Biden of illegally threatening Iran after the U.S. president told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in White House talks on Friday that he was putting "diplomacy first" to try to rein in Iran's nuclear program but that if negotiations fail he would be prepared to turn to other unspecified options.
- Biden-Bennett meeting: President says there are 'other measures' if Iran diplomacy fails
- Biden, Bennett statements prove: Actors in U.S. change, but the show must go on
- Meeting Biden on Iran, Bennett's task is nearly impossible
"The emphasis on using 'other options' against (Iran) amounts to threatening another country illegally and establishes Iran's right to reciprocate ... against 'available options'," Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, wrote in Hebrew on Twitter.
"I was happy to hear your clear words, that Iran will never acquire nuclear weapons," Bennett told Biden. "We will try the diplomatic route, but there are other options if that doesn't work out."
The UN atomic watchdog said in a report this month that Iran had accelerated its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade, a move raising tensions with the West as both sides seek to resume talks on reviving Tehran's nuclear deal.