A day after the helicopter crash that killed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian officials, the United States expressed “its official condolences” in a statement by State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller. Mr. Miller also wrote, “As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
At a press briefing, Spokesperson Miller said that expressing U.S. condolences after the death of an official foreign leader was an “appropriate step,” often taken by the United States. He made clear, however, the United States has no doubt about the kind of leadership Ebrahim Raisi displayed:
“Ebrahim Raisi was a brutal participant in the repression of the Iranian people for nearly four decades. He was involved in numerous horrific human rights abuses, including playing a key role in the extrajudicial killing of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Some of the worst human rights abuses occurred during his tenure as president, especially the human rights abuses against the women and girls of Iran.”
“We don’t want to see anyone die in a helicopter crash,” said Mr. Miller. “But that doesn’t change the reality of his record both as a judge and as the president of Iran, and the fact that he has blood on his hands.”
“Most importantly, our fundamental approach to Iran has not changed and will not change. We will continue to support the people of Iran, to defend their human rights, their aspirations to an open, free society and democratic participation,” he said. “And we will continue to confront the Iranian regime’s support for terrorism, its proliferation of dangerous weapons, and its advancement of its nuclear program in ways that have no credible civilian purpose.”
Spokesperson Miller noted that the United States holds the Iranian regime accountable, not only by words but actions, “including imposing more than 500 sanctions on the Iranian Government and Iranian entities for their destabilizing actions in the region and for the repression of their own people.”
To the Iranian people, Spokesperson Miller declared: “The official message is that we stand with them as we have stood by them, and our policy of holding the Iranian regime responsible for [its] abuses has not changed and will not change, period.”
