MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump was naive to believe that he could hand-select Iran’s new supreme leader, who would then obey his demands, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali told TASS.

He noted that, in the White House’s view, Iran was destined to become "as easy a target as Venezuela, and that with the physical elimination of the supreme leader of the revolution, and then with the collapse of the political system and military hierarchy, conditions will be created for the coming to power of a person who will submit to his demands."

"It appears that recent events have clearly demonstrated the naivety of such a view. Therefore, such statements don't warrant a response," Jalali emphasized, responding to a question about Tehran’s perception of the US president’s rhetoric regarding the election of a new Supreme Leader.

In this regard, the ambassador reiterated that Iran is an independent country, and "the only determining factor in its leadership and political course is its people."

On the situation in Iran

Earlier, US President Donald Trump expressed the opinion that the US should be involved in the process of choosing a new Iranian leadership to prevent the rise to power of someone like the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and to prevent Washington from having to launch a new military campaign in five years.

The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on February 28. Major Iranian cities, including Tehran, were struck. The White House justified the attack by citing alleged missile and nuclear threats from Iran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced a retaliatory operation, targeting sites in Israel. US military bases in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also hit. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and some other key Iranian leaders were killed in the joint US-Israeli attack.