Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday “there is no plan” by Iran to hang people, when asked about the anti-government protests in the Middle Eastern nation.
“There is no plan for hanging at all,” the foreign minister told Fox News in an interview on the “Special Report with Bret Baier” show. “Hanging is out of the question,” he said.
In an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would take “very strong action” if Iran started hanging protesters, but did not elaborate on his comments. “If they hang them, you’re going to see some things,” Trump said.
Trump said on Wednesday that he was told that killings in the Iranian government’s crackdown on the protests were subsiding and that he believed there was currently no plan for large-scale executions.
Trump has been weighing a response to the situation in Iran which is seeing its biggest anti-government protests in years.
Iran had a 12-day war with U.S. ally Israel last year and its nuclear facilities were bombed by the U.S. military in June. Trump has been piling pressure on Iran’s leaders, including threatening military action.
The protests posed one of the gravest tests of clerical rule in the country since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 as they evolved from complaints about dire economic hardships to defiant calls for the fall of the deeply entrenched clerical establishment.
The U.S.-based HRANA rights group said it had so far verified the deaths of 2,403 protesters and 147 government-affiliated individuals. HRANA reported 18,137 arrests so far.
Iran’s government blames foreign sanctions for economic difficulties and alleges that its foreign enemies are interfering in domestic affairs.
