The United States has to stop the violence against its own people, Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Monday.
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This comes as hundreds of thousands of protesters in over 30 cities have taken to the streets across the U.S. following George Floyd's assassination by the police on May 25. The demonstrators have been violently repressed by police since Wednesday.
"To the American people: the world has heard your outcry over the state of oppression. The world is standing with you," Mousavi stated at a news conference in Tehran. "And to the American officials and police: stop violence against your people and let them breathe."
The spokesman accused the U.S. of promoting and exporting violence, and regretted the way people in that country "who peacefully seek respect and no more violence, are being suppressed indiscriminately and met with utmost violence."
Tensions between Teheran and Washington arose in 2018 when Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear accord and adopted a "maximum pressure" strategy on Iran, by reimposing sanctions on its economy.
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted that "the “knee-on-neck” technique is nothing new: Same cabal (...) have been employing it on 80M Iranians for two years, calling it “maximum pressure”. It hasn't brought us to our knees. Nor will it abase African-Americans."