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News ID: 44429
Publish Date : 20 September 2017 - 21:57
IRGC Chief’s Response to Trump’s Pugnacious Rant:

U.S. Should Experience ‘Painful Responses’



TEHRAN (Dispatches) - The head of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday that the United States should experience "painful responses” following President Donald Trump’s harsh criticism of Tehran at the United Nations.
In his first speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday Trump accused Iran of supporting terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East. He also hinted he might not recertify a 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran when it comes up for a mid-Oct. deadline.
"Taking a definitive stand against Trump is only the beginning of the path,” said General Muhammad Ali Jafari, according to Sepah News, the news site of the IRGC.
"What is strategically important is that America witnesses more painful responses in the actions, behavior and decisions that Iran takes in the coming months.”
In recent months, tensions have ramped up between Iran and the United States in the Persian Gulf, where the Iranian Navy has accused U.S. troops of provocative maneuvers with military vessels.
Jafari urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to deliver a definitive response to Trump in his speech at the United Nations on Wednesday.
"With the successive and exhausting defeats that the Americans have faced in the region from Iran, it’s natural that their nervous system and coherence of thought have fallen apart,” Sepah News quoted Jafari as saying.
In Tuesday’s speech, Trump called the 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated between Iran and six world powers, and backed by his predecessor Barack Obama, "an embarrassment”.  
Iranian Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif on Tuesday slammed Trump’s address, calling it an "ignorant hate speech.”
"Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times — not the 21st century UN — unworthy of a reply,” Zarif said on Twitter.  "Fake empathy for Iranians fools no one,” he added.
The US president accused Tehran of using its wealth to prop up Syrian leader Bashar Assad, back rebels in Yemen and "undermine peace throughout the entire Middle East.”
Trump appeared to pave the way towards tearing up the nuclear deal signed in 2015 between six world powers and Iran.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday Russia is "extremely concerned” by Trump’s comments questioning the Iran nuclear deal and suspects that Washington itself may have violated a landmark arms control treaty.
Lavrov’s comments, made to Russian reporters at the United Nations in New York and published by his ministry on Wednesday, illustrate how deeply Moscow and Washington are at odds over an array of issues and suggest any attempts to improve already battered relations face an uphill struggle.
Lavrov, whose country is a signatory to the deal, said Russia strongly disagreed with Trump’s stance.
"It’s extremely worrying,” he said. "We will defend this document, this consensus, which was met with relief by the entire international community and genuinely strengthened both regional and international security.”
He saved some of his harshest criticism however for what he said was a possible violation by the United States of a landmark 1987 arms control treaty which bans Russian and American intermediate-range missiles on land.
A senior Trump administration official accused Russia earlier this year of violating the same pact -- the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty -- something Moscow denied.
But Lavrov said it looked like it was Washington, which is in the midst of a $1 trillion, 30-year modernization of its aging ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, that was in breach of the same treaty.
"We have suspicions on at least three fronts that the Americans are creating weapons systems which violate or could violate the treaty obligations,” said Lavrov, who said Moscow had relayed its concerns to the United States.
Lavrov has met U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson twice in New York this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron also said it would be "a grave error" to unwind the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
"Renouncing it would be a grave error, not respecting it would be irresponsible, because it is a good accord that is essential to peace at a time where the risk of an infernal conflagration cannot be excluded,” Macron said.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Wednesday Trump is unhappy with the Iran nuclear deal but has not signaled he will abandon it.
"It’s not a clear signal that he plans to withdraw. What it is, is a clear signal that he’s not happy with the deal,” the envoy, Nikki Haley, told CBS News of Trump’s pugnacious speech.
While world leaders took turn to denounce Trump’s threatening language, the occupying regime of Israel’s premier Benjamin Netanyahu praised him, calling the rant most "courageous speech” he had ever heard at the world body.
"In over 30 years in my experience with the UN, I never heard a bolder or more courageous speech,” Netanyahu said in a statement after the speech.