Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday warned neighboring countries against fomenting unrest in his country, after anti-government protests roiled the country over the past two weeks.
Zarif's remarks at a security conference in Tehran echoed previous allegations by Iranian officials, who have blamed the violence that accompanied some of the protests on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
"Some countries tried to misuse the recent incidents," Zarif said, without offering names.
"No country can create a secure environment for itself at the expense of creating insecurity among its neighbors. Such efforts will only backfire," the official IRNA news agency quoted Zarif as saying.
The anti-government demonstrations broke out on Dec. 28 in Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, and later spread to several other cities and towns. They were the largest protests seen in Iran since those that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election. The latest protests were sparked by a hike in food prices amid soaring unemployment, but some demonstrators later called for the government's overthrow and chanted against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
At least 21 people have been killed and hundreds arrested. Large pro-government rallies were held in response.
In the past few days, Iranian authorities have said the protests are waning, and on Sunday, Iran's Revolutionary Guards claimed the nation and its security forces had ended the unrest.
The Revolutionary Guards blamed the unrest on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as an exiled opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq and supporters of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Zarif also mentioned the U.N. Security Council's emergency session held on Friday. The United States had called the meeting, portraying the Iranian protests as a human rights issue that could spill over into an international problem.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said the session had put Iran on notice that "the world will be watching" its actions, but envoys from several other countries expressed reservations about whether the council was the right forum for the issue.
Zarif on Monday depicted the session as a fiasco, saying the Trump administration is "isolated at the international level."
The world "witnessed that [all other] members of the U.N. Security Council spoke about preventing the meddling in Iran's internal affairs," he said.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that despite the exploitation of the protests by outsiders, authorities should listen to the demonstrators' economic grievances.
"People rightfully say, 'See us, listen to our words,'" Rouhani said.
Rouhani, a relative moderate, also argued against the permanent suspension of social media applications, which the authorities shut down at the height of the protests, including the popular messaging app Telegram, which is used by an estimated 40 million Iranians, half the population.
"You had a good sleep while 40 million people were in trouble," Rouhani said.
Referring to the widespread use of the apps in online commerce, he said that because of their suspension, "some 100,000 people have lost their jobs over this past week."
