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Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei stated Saturday that avenging the killing of his father and predecessor was "the demand of the nation" and "must certainly" take place, in a written message released on Iranian state-linked media following his father's funeral.
"We pledge to avenge the blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers," Khamenei said in the message, addressing his late father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28.
According to a version of the statement carried by state-linked Tasnim News Agency, Khamenei added: "These criminals, whose names from top to bottom are known and documented, will take their wish for a peaceful death in old age and in their beds with them to the grave. They must know that this matter does not depend on my existence or that of other officials."
The statement came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened in a Truth Social post to "completely decimate" Iran if the Iranian government attempted or succeeded in assassinating him.
The new supreme leader had not appeared in public since his appointment as of the time of the message.
Separately, a source close to Iran's negotiating team told the semi-official Fars News Agency that talks between Tehran and Washington would not take place unless the U.S. reversed its current position.
The source denied reports circulating in Israeli media that Iran had requested negotiations with the United States, calling them false.
"An indication that the US has backed down would be the establishment of a Lebanon working group aimed at ending the war, securing a withdrawal, resolving the issue of passage through the Strait of Hormuz, and implementing other agreed-upon matters, chief among them the normalization of Iran's oil exports," the source said.
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