In a four-hour-long meeting with Iranian students on Saturday, the president drew a line between protests and riots, and said, “Riots and attempts at destabilizing the country are different from protests, and rioters and those who incite insecurity must definitely be dealt with.”
President Raisi highlighted the role of hostile foreign parties in the recent wave of unrest in the country, saying, “The Americans and our enemies were after executing similar models of their [plots] in Libya and Syria to destabilize the country, while they achieved nothing but defeat.”
The president underscored Iran’s significant progress and numerous achievements over the past four decades, which he said were the reason why enemies were scrambling to hatch new conspiracies against the country.
The public and even many of the elites do not have precise and comprehensive information about the extent of Iran’s progress, he said.
