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As Iran observed an emotional farewell for its former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the Middle East conflict on February 28, US President Donald Trump took a jab at Tehran on Friday, saying the United States gave Iran “a week off” for the funeral because America is “nice.”<\/p>
Addressing a large crowd at Mount Rushmore ahead of the July 4 celebrations, Trump referred to the recent conflict with Iran and defended his administration’s military action against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>
“We knocked the hell out of Iran. They’re dying to settle. They want to settle so badly. We gave them a week off for a funeral because we’re nice,” Trump said, drawing loud cheers and laughter from the audience.<\/p>
The remarks came as Iran held farewell ceremonies for Khamenei.\u00a0<\/p>
Senior foreign officials on Friday paid their final respects to Iran’s slain Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the country began a week of funeral ceremonies. Allies and mourners gathered in Tehran, where Khamenei’s body lay in state ahead of his burial.<\/p>
Iranian authorities expect millions to participate in public mourning and large funeral processions before Khamenei is laid to rest next week, four months after he was killed at the age of 86 in the opening US-Israeli strikes of the conflict.<\/p>
At Tehran’s Grand Mosalla religious complex, mourners carried Khamenei’s coffin, draped in the Iranian national flag, during a solemn ceremony honoring the leader who ruled the Islamic Republic for more than three decades.<\/p>
Delegations from the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah were among those paying tribute, ahead of a public funeral ceremony scheduled to begin on Saturday.<\/p>
Representatives from around 30 countries are expected to attend the funeral, while allies including China and several of Iran’s neighbours in the Caucasus region have also announced they will send official delegations.<\/p>
MUST READ:\u00a0US alerted Iran of Israeli plot to assassinate top peace deal negotiators: Report<\/strong><\/p> MUST READ:\u00a0‘Positive progress’ on Hormuz but no breakthrough: US-Iran indirect talks in Doha conclude<\/strong><\/p> <\/div> Ayatollah Ali Khamenei funeral, Donald Trump Iran remarks, Mount Rushmore speech, Iran US tensions, Middle East conflict, Tehran settlement claims, July 4 festivities, US action against Iran#039We #gave #week #off039 #Trump #takes #swipe #Iran #July #speech1783140435<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Iran observed an emotional farewell for its former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the start of the Middle East conflict on February 28, US President Donald Trump took a jab at Tehran on Friday, saying the United States gave Iran “a week off” for the funeral because America is “nice.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2732,43558,21624,540,968,6144,493,43561,15123,43559,43563,7649,5452,2296,43560,378,43562,1241],"class_list":["post-10932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content-marketing","tag-039we","tag-ayatollah-ali-khamenei-funeral","tag-donald-trump-iran-remarks","tag-gave","tag-iran","tag-iran-us-tensions","tag-july","tag-july-4-festivities","tag-middle-east-conflict","tag-mount-rushmore-speech","tag-off039","tag-speech","tag-swipe","tag-takes","tag-tehran-settlement-claims","tag-trump","tag-us-action-against-iran","tag-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}