Trump cancels meetings with Iran officials and tells protesters ‘help is on way’
It comes as human rights monitors said the death toll in the nationwide protests had risen to at least 2,000.
US President Donald Trump said he has cancelled talks with Iranian officials amid a protest crackdown, telling Iranian citizens “help is on its way”.
Mr Trump did not offer any details about what the help would entail, but it comes after the Republican president earlier this week said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington DC after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic that has killed more than 2,000, according to human rights monitors.
Mr Trump with his latest message on social media appeared to make an abrupt shift about his willingness to engage with the Iranian government.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” Mr Trump wrote in a morning post on Truth Social.
“Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price.
“I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
The president has repeatedly threatened Tehran with military action if his administration finds the Islamic Republic is using deadly force against anti-government protesters, but he has not said whether he has made a decision on a response.
On Monday, Mr Trump said he would slap 25% tariffs on countries doing business with Tehran “effective immediately”, but the White House has not provided details on that move.
China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Brazil and Russia are among economies that do business with Tehran.
US vice president JD Vance, secretary of state Marco Rubio and key White House National Security Council officials began meetings on Friday to develop options for Mr Trump, ranging from a diplomatic approach to military strikes.
Iran, through the country’s parliamentary speaker, has warned that the US military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if Washington uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 600 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the Human Rights Activists News Agency reported on Tuesday.
The activist group said 1,850 of the dead were protesters and 135 were government-affiliated.
It said more than 16,700 people had been detained.
Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult.
Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations and online videos offer only brief, shaky glimpses of people in the streets or the sound of gunfire.
Iranian state television offered the first official acknowledgment of the high death toll on Tuesday, quoting an official saying the country had “a lot of martyrs” and that it did not release a toll earlier because of the dead suffering gruesome injuries.
However, that statement came only after activists reported their toll.
Mr Trump’s push on the Iranian government to end the crackdown comes as he is dealing with a series of other foreign policy emergencies around the globe.
It’s been just over a week since the US military launched a successful raid to arrest Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and remove him from power.
The US continues to mass an unusually large number of troops in the Caribbean Sea.
Mr Trump is also focused on trying to get Israel and Hamas onto the second phase of a peace deal in Gaza and broker an agreement between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly four-year war in Eastern Europe.
But advocates urging Mr Trump to take strong action against Iran say this moment offers an opportunity to further diminish the theocratic government that has ruled the country since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
The demonstrations are the biggest Iran has seen in years — protests spurred by the collapse of Iranian currency that have morphed into a larger test of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s repressive rule.
