NEW YORK, January 15. /TASS/. Israel sought to drag US President Donald Trump and his administration into a conflict with Iran by infiltrating terrorists into protesting crowds, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

"For three days, we had, in fact, been fighting against terrorists and not, you know, with the protesters. It was a completely different story," he said in an interview with Fox News. "They started to shoot at people for one reason - they wanted to increase the number of deaths. Why? Because President Trump has said that if there are killings, he would intervene, and they wanted to drag him into this conflict."

"And that was exactly an Israeli plot. They wanted to drag the president of the United States into this conflict," he emphasized.

Unrest in Iran began on December 29 after street protests triggered by a sharp fall in the Iranian rial exchange rate, and spread to most major cities. Authorities reported the deaths of 40 law enforcement officers. According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, armed terrorists appeared among the demonstrators on January 8. The Iranian authorities blamed Israel and the United States for organizing the unrest.

Trump said earlier that he was seriously considering using force against Tehran.