Jan 18,2020: Iran’s supreme leader said Friday that demonstrations at home over the accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner were unrepresentative of the Iranian people and accused the country’s enemies of exploiting the disaster for propaganda purposes.
Leading the main weekly Muslim prayers in Tehran for the first time since 2012, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the January 8 incident was a “bitter” tragedy but should not be allowed to overshadow the “sacrifice” of one of Iran’s most storied commanders, assassinated in a US drone strike.
His sermon came after a traumatic month for Iran in which it approached the brink of war with the United States and mistakenly shot down the Ukrainian jet, killing all 176 people on board.
“The plane crash was a bitter accident, it burned through our heart,” Khamenei said in an address punctuated by cries of “Death to America” from the congregation.
“But some tried to… portray it in a way to forget the great martyrdom and sacrifice” of Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of the foreign operations arm of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who was assassinated in Baghdad on January 3.
Khamenei said Iran’s enemies had tried to use the plane tragedy to undermine the Islamic republic.
“Our enemies were as happy about the plane crash as we were sad,” he said.
“The spokesmen of the vicious American government keep repeating that we stand with the people of Iran. You’re lying,” Khamenei said.
He also slammed Britain, France and Germany, which on Tuesday decided to trigger a dispute mechanism in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, following US threats to impose tariffs on European cars.
The air disaster triggered scattered protests in Tehran and other cities, but they appeared smaller than nationwide demonstrations in November in which Amnesty International said at least 300 people died.
