President Donald Trump said Iranian authorities have indicated they will cancel planned executions of protestors, though he cautioned that the regime’s follow-through remains uncertain.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the Iranian government has conveyed that it intends to stop the killing of protestors and cancel planned executions, following days of escalating unrest and international concern over Tehran’s crackdown.
“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump said during a press conference. “It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions or an execution.”
Trump said the information came from discussions with unnamed interlocutors connected to the Iranian side, suggesting ongoing communication, though he declined to provide further details. Asked to clarify the source of the assurances, he said he had spoken with “some very important people on the other side.”
“They’ve said the killing has stopped and the executions won’t take place,” Trump said. “There was supposed to be a lot of executions today, and that the executions won’t take place.”
The president emphasized that the assurances remain unverified. “We’re going to find out … but we’ve been told on good authority, and I hope it’s true,” he said. “Who knows? … But they told me that there’ll be no executions, and so I hope that’s true.”
Trump also suggested that potential U.S. military action, which he has referenced in recent days, could be reconsidered depending on Iran’s actions. Asked whether the update meant military intervention was now “off the table,” Trump said the United States would “watch and see what the process is.”
Earlier Wednesday, Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, publicly called for swift retaliation against protestors, saying more than 18,000 people should be rapidly tried and executed for participating in demonstrations against the Islamic Republic.
“If we want to do a job, we should do it now. If we want to do something, we have to do it quickly,” Mohseni-Ejei said. “If it becomes late, two months, three months later, it doesn’t have the same effect.”
Other Iranian officials have accused foreign powers of fomenting the unrest. Mohammad Pakpour, commander of Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, told the country’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency that the United States and Israel were responsible and would “receive the response in the appropriate time.”
International observers and protestors have pointed instead to internal pressures, particularly Iran’s deteriorating economic conditions amid ongoing U.S. and Western sanctions, as the primary drivers of the demonstrations.
The violence has resulted in a heavy death toll. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 2,586 people have been killed during the unrest and subsequent government crackdown, though it warned the actual number may be significantly higher. Of those deaths, the organization said 2,417 were protestors and 147 were individuals affiliated with the state.
The agency said the current wave of unrest is the deadliest since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which overthrew the U.S.-backed Persian monarchy and established the current Islamic Republic.
The developments come months after the United States carried out strikes inside Iran targeting underground nuclear facilities, further heightening tensions between Washington and Tehran as protests continue to challenge the Iranian regime’s authority.
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