MASHHAD -- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in Mashhad on Thursday that no one in the country should ever take moves contrary to the national interests or harmful to the national identity.

“And should a party, current, group, or faction wish to act in defiance of this path, the people will deal with them,” the Leader stated at a gathering of martyrs’ families, war veterans, and former prisoners of war from Khorasan Razavi Province.

The Leader said the Iranian nation has demonstrated it can stand up to the arrogant powers.

Ayatollah Khamenei criticized the countries that seek dominance over others and the countries that succumb to the pressure imposed on them by arrogant powers. “The act of the arrogant powers in domineering over other countries and the yielding of subservient states to the dominant powers are both wrong.”

Nations can prevent the hegemonic powers from gaining supremacy over them culturally and politically by maintaining their national interests and national identity, he noted.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader said the glory attained by Iranian martyrs and war veterans reinforced “resistance against domination and polarization of the world into domineering and subservient powers” and set an example for Muslim countries and all free nations.

Ayatollah Khamenei also stated that more attention should be paid to the martyrs’ families and said the martyrs of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war should always be remembered.