Iran protests latest: Trump envoy tells UN ‘all options on the table’ as US aircraft carrier heads for region

The US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by the United States that “the people of Iran are demanding their freedom like never before in the Islamic Republic’s brutal history.”

He said the US message is clear: “President Donald J Trump and the United States of America stand by the brave people of Iran.””President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Waltz said.

“He has made it clear, all options are on the table to stop the slaughter, and no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”

Waltz dismissed Iranian allegations that the protests are “a foreign plot” and precursor to military action saying: “Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets.”

“They are afraid,” he said. “They are afraid of their own people.”

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that Moscow stands in solidary with Iran and backs its view that “hostile external forcers are attempting to exploit the current situation in order to overthrow a government they find objectionable and destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran as a sovereign and independent state.

“Russia called on the US “to stop making themselves out to be a global judge and put an end to their escalatory actions,” he said.

Moscow also called on the UN’s 193 member nations “to prevent a new large-scale escalation”.

Nebenzia said the US’s actions “risk plunging the region into even bloodier chaos – chaos that could easily spill beyond its borders”.

He appeared to blame the protesters themselves for the high death toll in a brutal crackdown by the security forces in Iran, pointing to the use of firearms, the killing of civilians and law enforcement officers and arson attacks on medical facilities and public institutions.

Gholam Hossein Darzi, the deputy Iranian ambassador to the UN, has accused the US of “direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence”.

“Under the hollow pretext of concern for the Iranian people and claims of support for human rights, the United States is attempting to portray itself as a friend of the Iranian people – while simultaneously laying the groundwork for political destabilisation and military intervention under a so-called ‘humanitarian’ narrative,” Darzi said during his statement.

The Iranian official also called out the US for what it described as its own human rights abuses against protesters with the recent killing of Renee Good in Minnesota by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

France’s UN ambassador Jïrïme Bonnafont said that “given the scale and brutality of the repression” against protesters, the international community must denounce the violence.

He reiterated France’s call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained and suspension of the death penalty and called for the rapid convening of a special session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to address the situation in Iran and investigate rights violations.

Britain’s deputy ambassador Archibald Young condemned Iran’s actions “in the strongest possible terms” and paid tribute “to the courage of the Iranian people, particularly Iranian women”.

The United Kingdom has told Iran’s foreign minister that “Iran must urgently change course” and respect the fundamental rights of Iranians, “including the right to protest without fear of violence or repression.

“If it doesn’t, Young said the Group of Seven major industrialised nations, including the UK, has made clear that it will impose additional sanctions.”The world is watching,” he said.

New Zealand has “temporarily” closed its embassy in Tehran, Iran, and moved consular operations to Ankara, Turkey, officials in Wellington said on Friday.

All New Zealand diplomatic staff left Iran on commercial flights during the past day, New Zealand’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The move followed remarks on Thursday by foreign minister Winston Peters, who said his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.

“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.

The foreign ministry repeated official advice Friday that New Zealanders should avoid travel to Iran and “leave now” if they were already there.

They said the ability of New Zealand’s government to provide consular help to the country’s citizens in Iran was “extremely limited”.

Ahead of the emergency UN Security Council meeting Thursday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and secretary-general Antonio Guterres spoke by phone to discuss the recent deadly protests and Iran’s request for the world body to do more to condemn what they call foreign influence in the Islamic Republic, according to a readout of the call posted on Iranian state TV.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Araghchi implored the top UN official to live up to the “serious expectation” that Iran’s government and its people have of the UNs’ role in condemning what the officials called “illegal US interventions against Iran.”

Masih Alinejad, one of the most vocal Iranian dissidents in the US, accused the United Nations and the Security Council of failing “to respond with the urgency this moment demands” at the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday.

In October, two purported Russian mobsters were each sentenced to 25 years behind bars for hiring a hitman to kill Alinejad at her Brooklyn home on behalf of the Iranian government.

Sitting across the table from the Iranian ambassador to the UN, Alinejad, who came after an invitation from the US, said that “the members of this body have forgotten the privilege and responsibility of sitting in this room.”

The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday to discuss Iran’s deadly protests at the request of the United States, even as president Donald Trump left unclear what actions he would take against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran appeared to make conciliatory statements in an effort to defuse the situation after Trump threatened to take action to stop further killing of protesters, including the execution of anyone detained in Tehran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “All options remain on the table for the president.”

Iran’s crackdown on the demonstrations has killed at least 2,615, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported. The death toll exceeds any other round of protest or unrest in Iran in decades and recalls the chaos surrounding the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.