Ali Akbar Velayati, a top foreign policy adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, threatened Israel on Tuesday.
Velayati declared that the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem speeds up the “annihilation of the Zionist regime”, according to a report in the Tehran Times.
“Relocation of the U.S. embassy to one of the most sacred religious places of the Muslims will speed up the process of the Zionist regime’s collapse,” he said in a post on Instagram.
Velayati further said that the U.S. move was made to recognize the Zionist regime’s “illegal” status, but it revealed more the “cruel” image of the Zionists.
“Return to homeland which has been occupied by a tyrant and child-killer regime is a rightful demand which will be met soon. The Palestinians have always resisted and will resist criminal acts of Israel which is being backed by the U.S. and certain reactionary allies in the region,” he said, according to the Tehran Times.
Velayati then claimed that Jerusalem has belonged and will always belong to Muslims.
His comments came a day after the U.S. inaugurated its new embassy in Jerusalem, relocating it from Tel Aviv.
In protest of the opening of the embassy, Gazans held violent riots along the border with Israel. 58 people were killed in the violence, among them 24 terrorists. The border protests, which have been going on since March 30, have been openly encouraged by Hamas.
Velayati has threatened Israel in the past, having said in February that Iran would maintain its involvement and presence in the region, in order to thwart the plots of Israel and the U.S.
Velayati has in the past vowed that his country would continue its ballistic missile tests, after the United States sharply criticized one of those tests.
He is also on the Interpol wanted list over the deadly bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994.
