The United States must be held accountable, Khamenei stated. Trump took up the cleric's challenge and assured in an interview with Politico that "it is time to seek new leadership in Iran" that ends the nearly 37-year rule of the Supreme Leader. The American accused Khamenei of "the total destruction of the country and the use of violence at levels never before seen" with the death of "thousands of people to maintain control". Trump has threatened on several occasions in recent weeks to attack Iran, first if more people died in the protests, then if executions took place, and later stated that "help is on the way", which many interpreted as a warning of an intervention that never materialized. Khamenei acknowledged that "several thousand" people have died in the protests, but blamed those deaths on a supposed U.S.-Israel conspiracy. Tehran's prosecutor, Ali Salehi, also mentioned Trump to reject his claims about the alleged suspension of executions of protesters and assured that the response of Iranian justice will be "firm, deterrent and rapid". Tensions between Iran and the United States have soared with the exchange of accusations and threats between the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and U.S. President Donald Trump, when it seemed that the possibility of an attack on the Persian country was fading. Tensions that Tehran today blamed on Washington for its interference in its internal affairs amid the protests that have shaken Iran in recent weeks and U.S. threats of military intervention. "We consider the President of the United States guilty of the victims, the damage, and the accusations he has directed against the Iranian nation," he said at a meeting in Tehran on the anniversary of the election of Muhammad as the prophet of Islam. The highest political and religious authority in Iran stated that the protests that have shaken the country "were a U.S. plot and the U.S. objective is to devour Iran", and accused Trump of "personally intervening". "It is not Iran that interferes in the internal affairs of the American people, but the United States that continues its policy of interference against Iran and the countries of the region," the diplomat continued. The accusations by Baghaei come after the leaders of both countries, Ali Khamenei and Donald Trump, exchanged harsh accusations and threats on Saturday. Khamenei challenged Trump by calling him a "criminal" and holding him responsible for the death of "several thousand people" during protests which he accused the United States and Israel of. "Trump always says unfounded nonsense; our response will be firm, deterrent and rapid," Salehi reiterated. The protests began at the end of December by Tehran merchants due to the fall of the rial and quickly spread across the country calling for an end to the Islamic Republic, and peaked on January 8 and 9, with an explosion of demonstrations in almost all of Iran. "The generation of tensions has become part of the hostile conduct of the United States," said the spokesman for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ismail Baghaei, at a press conference on Sunday.
