Washington, February 16: US President Barack Obama has expressed hope to see more anti-government protests in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The US president made the remarks during a White House press conference on Tuesday.
“My hope and expectation is that we are gonna continue to see the people of Iran have the courage to be able to express their yearning for greater freedoms and a more representative government,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Iranian MPs accused Washington and Tel Aviv of being behind Monday’s riots in Tehran.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said the United States is behind the anti-government protests, adding that Washington is angry over Iran’s support for the liberation movements sweeping the Middle East.
“The main purpose was to clone [the protests] so they could claim that the crises plaguing the US-backed dictatorships in the region have spread and that Iran — which has been the forerunner of democracy in the region — is also having internal problems,” Larijani said.
The remarks came one day after the supporters of two of the defeated candidates in the 2009 presidential election, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, gathered in parts of the Iranian capital.
Iranian lawmakers have called for the prosecution of Mousavi and Karroubi and have denounced their call for illegal rallies, in which two people were killed and several others injured.
——–Agencies