Iran protests latest: US deploys more forces to Middle East as Trump envoy tells UN ‘all options on table’

The UN warned possible military strikes on Iran would add “volatility to an already combustible situation” during an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Thursday.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres “urges maximum restraint at this sensitive moment and calls on all actors to refrain from any actions that could lead to further loss of life or ignite a wider regional escalation,” assistant secretary-general Martha Pobee said at the meeting.

Guterres remains convinced that all issues regarding Iran, including its nuclear program, should be addressed through diplomacy and dialogue, she said.

The UN chief reaffirms the UN Charter’s principles that disputes must be settled peacefully and prohibit the threat or use of force, Pobee said.

The United States stands by the “brave people of Iran,” and President Donald Trump “has made it clear all options are on the table to stop the slaughter,” US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told the UN Security Council on Thursday.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where thousands of people have been reported killed in a crackdown on the protests against clerical rule.

But on Thursday, Trump adopted a wait‑and‑see posture, saying he had been told that the killings were easing and that he believed there was no current plan for large-scale executions.

Waltz dismissed allegations by Iran that the protests are “a foreign plot to give a precursor to military action”.

“Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets. They are afraid. They’re afraid of their own people,” Waltz said.

Iran’s deputy UN ambassador Gholamhossein Darzi said Iran does not seek escalation or confrontation and accused Waltz of resorting “to lies, distortion of facts, and a deliberate misinformation campaign to conceal his country’s direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence”.

Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that the Islamic Republic is behaving like the Islamic State militant group, “and deserves to be treated like” the group.

She said: “That is how you save innocent lives.”She warned the “brutal slaughter” in Iran will get much worse if the world doesn’t take “serious action”.

Alinejad said all Iranians are united in seeking freedom and in the face of Iranian weapons they want action, not “empty words and empty condemnations”.

The US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by the United States that “the people of Iran are demanding their freedom like never before in the Islamic Republic’s brutal history.”

He said the US message is clear: “President Donald J Trump and the United States of America stand by the brave people of Iran.””President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Waltz said.

“He has made it clear, all options are on the table to stop the slaughter, and no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”

Waltz dismissed Iranian allegations that the protests are “a foreign plot” and precursor to military action saying: “Everyone in the world needs to know that the regime is weaker than ever before, and therefore is putting forward this lie because of the power of the Iranian people in the streets.”

“They are afraid,” he said. “They are afraid of their own people.”

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that Moscow stands in solidary with Iran and backs its view that “hostile external forcers are attempting to exploit the current situation in order to overthrow a government they find objectionable and destroy the Islamic Republic of Iran as a sovereign and independent state.

“Russia called on the US “to stop making themselves out to be a global judge and put an end to their escalatory actions,” he said.

Moscow also called on the UN’s 193 member nations “to prevent a new large-scale escalation”.

Nebenzia said the US’s actions “risk plunging the region into even bloodier chaos – chaos that could easily spill beyond its borders”.

He appeared to blame the protesters themselves for the high death toll in a brutal crackdown by the security forces in Iran, pointing to the use of firearms, the killing of civilians and law enforcement officers and arson attacks on medical facilities and public institutions.

Gholam Hossein Darzi, the deputy Iranian ambassador to the UN, has accused the US of “direct involvement in steering unrest in Iran to violence”.

“Under the hollow pretext of concern for the Iranian people and claims of support for human rights, the United States is attempting to portray itself as a friend of the Iranian people – while simultaneously laying the groundwork for political destabilisation and military intervention under a so-called ‘humanitarian’ narrative,” Darzi said during his statement.

The Iranian official also called out the US for what it described as its own human rights abuses against protesters with the recent killing of Renee Good in Minnesota by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

France’s UN ambassador Jïrïme Bonnafont said that “given the scale and brutality of the repression” against protesters, the international community must denounce the violence.

He reiterated France’s call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained and suspension of the death penalty and called for the rapid convening of a special session of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to address the situation in Iran and investigate rights violations.

Britain’s deputy ambassador Archibald Young condemned Iran’s actions “in the strongest possible terms” and paid tribute “to the courage of the Iranian people, particularly Iranian women”.

The United Kingdom has told Iran’s foreign minister that “Iran must urgently change course” and respect the fundamental rights of Iranians, “including the right to protest without fear of violence or repression.

“If it doesn’t, Young said the Group of Seven major industrialised nations, including the UK, has made clear that it will impose additional sanctions.”The world is watching,” he said.

New Zealand has “temporarily” closed its embassy in Tehran, Iran, and moved consular operations to Ankara, Turkey, officials in Wellington said on Friday.

All New Zealand diplomatic staff left Iran on commercial flights during the past day, New Zealand’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The move followed remarks on Thursday by foreign minister Winston Peters, who said his government was “appalled by the escalation of violence and repression” in Iran.

“We condemn the brutal crackdown being carried out by Iran’s security forces, including the killing of protesters,” Peters posted on X.

The foreign ministry repeated official advice Friday that New Zealanders should avoid travel to Iran and “leave now” if they were already there.

They said the ability of New Zealand’s government to provide consular help to the country’s citizens in Iran was “extremely limited”.

Ahead of the emergency UN Security Council meeting Thursday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and secretary-general Antonio Guterres spoke by phone to discuss the recent deadly protests and Iran’s request for the world body to do more to condemn what they call foreign influence in the Islamic Republic, according to a readout of the call posted on Iranian state TV.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Araghchi implored the top UN official to live up to the “serious expectation” that Iran’s government and its people have of the UNs’ role in condemning what the officials called “illegal US interventions against Iran.”