TEHRAN – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has provoked Iranian protestors to submit video and other information documenting what he called the government’s “crackdown” on protesters, warning that Washington will sanction “the abuses.”

“I have asked the Iranian protesters to send us their videos, photos, and information documenting the regime’s crackdown on protesters. The U.S. will expose and sanction the abuses,” Pompeo said in a tweet late on Thursday.

The tweet was published in both English and Persian.

The U.S. government has voiced support for the instability in Iran ever since a mixture of peaceful and violent protests broke out across the country due to a hike in gasoline price, which was a result of U.S. economic sanctions against the Iranian nation.

In another tweet on Tuesday, Pompeo wrote, “The Iranian people will enjoy a better future when their government begins to respect basic human rights, abandons its revolutionary posture and its destabilizing activities in the region, and simply behaves like a normal nation. The choice is with the regime.”

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday summoned Switzerland’s Ambassador to Tehran Markus Leitner whose country represents the U.S. interests in Iran.

The Swiss diplomat was summoned due to Pompeo’s meddlesome remarks.

In a tweet last Saturday, Pompeo had also said, “As I said to the people of Iran almost a year and a half ago: The United States is with you.”

Although the Iranian government increased the gasoline price, it has said all the proceeds from the price rise will be paid in form of cash subsidy to 60 million Iranians, which account for about 75 percent of the population. 

Despite the increase, Iran still has the cheapest petrol in the world.

In a tweet on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump also cheered the protests in Iran.

“Iran has become so unstable that the regime has shut down their entire Internet System so that the Great Iranian people cannot talk about the tremendous violence taking place within the country,” Trump wrote.

“They want ZERO transparency, thinking the world will not find out the death and tragedy that the Iranian Regime is causing!” he added.

On the same day, the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, told the BBC Persian service that Washington was satisfied with the protests in Iran.

Hook, who is tasked with finding all the ways to put more and more pressure on Iran, claimed the Islamic Republic itself, and not the U.S. government, is responsible for the protests.

Responding to U.S. interference in Iran’s internal affairs, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said the U.S. claims of support for the Iranian people is a “shameful lie”.

“A regime which imposes economic terrorism and prevents sending food and medicine to ordinary people, including the elderly and sick ones, can never make an obscene claim of supporting the Iranian people,” Zarif said on Monday.

“Lawful protest is the people’s right which has been recognized by the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is no need for deceitful supports of regimes which seek to reach their illegitimate and illegal objectives through imposing economic pressure, even in area of food and medicine, on the Iranian people,” the foreign minister added.

MH/PA