Araghchi says over 70 countries represented at Khamenei funeral

US President Donald Trump said he was following Ali Khamenei’s funeral and suggested Iranian officials who gathered there could be targeted, but said Washington would not do so because it needs people to negotiate with, Axios reported Saturday.

“They are all there. One shot [and we can take them all out], but we are not going to do that because then we would have nobody to negotiate with,” Trump said.

Trump added Iran was “begging to make a deal,” but that both sides had agreed to pause talks for a week until events around Khamenei’s funeral end.

Alireza Panahian, a hardline cleric close to the office of Iran's supreme leader, said Tehran should be willing to sacrifice all its national interests to avenge Ali Khamenei, the IRGC-linked Fars news agency reported Saturday.

“We are ready to give up all our national interests to avenge our martyred imam, but we will take revenge,” Panahian said during his funeral.

“We will give up everything we have, but we will avenge our master,” he added.

Iran’s acting defense minister Majid Ebn al-Reza said Tehran signed a ceasefire understanding at the request of friendly regional countries despite its distrust of the United States, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported Saturday.

He said the Islamic Republic would give a “necessary and decisive” response if commitments under the understanding are violated.

Ebn al-Reza made the remarks in a meeting with Malaysia’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Mohamad Sabu, who traveled to Tehran as a special envoy to attend Ali Khamenei’s funeral.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said peace efforts in the Middle East would not succeed without support from regional countries and warned Israel must not be allowed to undermine the US-Iran peace deal, Reuters reported Saturday.

Speaking alongside Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Istanbul, Erdogan said no solution “that does not take strength from the will and contributions of regional countries” could be lasting.

“We are closely following the Israeli administration's attempts to dynamite the deal,” Erdogan said, adding that Israel’s government must not be allowed to plunge the region into “gunpowder and blood” again.

Ali Khamenei's funeral procession would be held by land, Brigadier General Hasan Hassanzadeh, the organizer of the funeral in Iran's capital, said on the state TV Saturday.

Gholamhossein Mozaffari, governor of Khorasan Razavi province, had earlier said provincial security officials proposed holding the procession in Mashhad by air to reduce crowding and ease security concerns.

The remarks drew wide reactions on social media.