ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday that Washington is to blame for the casualties in Iran's weeks-long nationwide protests, calling the riots an “American sedition,” and warning that the country would not let international and internal criminals go unpunished.

Nationwide protests in Iran have entered their third week, beginning on December 27 at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where business owners and shopkeepers launched strikes and protests over the falling value of the Iranian rial against the US dollar. The unrest later spread to other provinces, with chants increasingly targeting the state.

Khamenei, in his Saturday speech, directly blamed Trump for the unrest, recalling Washington’s offer of possible military intervention and saying, “The US president himself entered this sedition,” while noting, “we consider America guilty, both for the casualties, for the damages, and for the slander they have leveled against the Iranian nation.”

The tensions reached their peak on Tuesday when President Donald Trump canceled talks with Iranian officials and told protestors in Iran that “help is on its way.”

Iran has strongly condemned Trump's remarks and threatened retaliation, while blaming the protests on Washington and Tel Aviv.

Khamenei accused Washington of orchestrating the weeks-long protests against Iran's Islamic Regime, saying, “This was an American sedition, it was obvious.”

“What distinguished this sedition was that the US president himself personally intervened in it, he spoke out, made statements, issued threats, and encouraged the rioters,” Khamenei said, recalling previous protests in the country, which he described as “seditions” in which second-level US and European officials would typically intervene.

“Worse than the internal criminals are the international criminals. We will not let them go either. This must be pursued in the proper way and through the correct methods. Just as the Iranian people broke the backbone of the sedition, they must also break the backbone of the seditionists,” he added.

Following Khamenei’s comments, Trump called the Iranian leader “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” in an interview with POLITICO.

“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Trump said.

Security crackdowns have intensified in Iran, and authorities have imposed a near-total communications blackout, cutting internet and phone services nationwide to curb information flow and limit coordination of demonstrations.

Human rights monitors have suggested that over 3,000 people have been killed, over 22,000 arrested, and many injured, as exact figures remain difficult to pin down amidst the state-imposed countrywide internet blackouts. Tehran has labeled the protestors as “foreign plots” and “terrorist elements” working with the US and Israel.