TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran's Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif ridiculed U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday over the foreign policy "blunder" of trying to raise its recent protests at the UN Security Council.
The Security Council "rebuffed the U.S.' naked attempt to hijack its mandate," Zarif wrote on Twitter.
"Majority emphasized the need to fully implement the JCPOA (nuclear deal) and to refrain from interfering in internal affairs of others. Another FP (foreign policy) blunder for the Trump administration."
The United States had pushed for the UN meeting on Friday to discuss riots that hit Iran last week. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley argued that the unrest could escalate into full-blown conflict and drew a comparison with Syria.
Russia's envoy Vassily Nebenzia shot back that, if the U.S. view holds, the council should have also discussed the 2014 unrest in the U.S. suburb of Ferguson, Missouri over the police shooting of a black teenager or the U.S. crackdown on the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement.
Nebenzia said involving the council in an "internal affair" damaged the top UN body.
"Why is the United States, a permanent member of the Security Council and one of the authors of the UN Charter, undermining the authority of the Security Council as the main body which is responsible for maintaining international peace and security? I think it is obvious for everyone that the topic chosen today does not fall within the parameters established by the UN Charter for this Security Council,” he asked.
Britain and France reiterated that Iran must respect the rights of protesters, but French Ambassador Francois Delattre said the "events of the past days do not constitute a threat to peace and international security".
China also described the meeting as meddling in Iran's affairs, while Ethiopia, Kuwait and Sweden expressed reservations about the discussion.
"The Iranian situation did not pose a threat to international peace and security, and discussing its domestic situation was not part of the Council’s responsibilities as outlined in the Charter,” he pointed out.
Kairat Umarov, Kazakhstan's representative who also serves as the council’s president, said that his country considered the events unfolding in Iran to be "a domestic issue that did not fall under the mandate of the Security Council.”
Sweden’s representative Irina Schoulgin Nyoni emphasized that Stockholm had "reservations on the format and timing of this session.”
Iran's Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo slammed the meeting as a "farce" and a "waste of time" and said the council should instead focus on addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the war in Yemen.
The U.S. has "lost every shred of moral, political and legal authority and credibility in the eyes of the whole world", he told the gathering.
Iranian authorities have declared the unrest over while people have taken to streets in massive rallies across the country to condemn the riots and foreign support for rioters.
On Saturday, people rallied again several cities across Iran for a fourth straight day to express support for the Islamic establishment and denounce the violence that was staged in recent protests.
They marched in the capital and the cities of Sari, Amol, and Semnan in the north, Ilam in the west, and Kerman in the south. They shouted slogans and carried placards, condemning violence and sedition.
The Russian envoy stressed that the Security Council meeting was actually meant to undermine the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
"You are dispersing the energy of the Security Council, instead of focusing it on dealing with key crisis situations in Afghanistan, Syria Libya, Iraq, Yemen, DPRK, the African continent. Instead of that, you are proposing that we interfere in the internal affairs of a state,” said the Russian official.
"We don’t want to get involved in destabilizing Iran or any other country,” he said.
Iran signed a nuclear deal with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China in 2015, easing sanctions in exchange for curbs to the country's nuclear program.
President Trump has fiercely opposed the deal, but the other signatories remain firmly behind it.
Trump must decide every few months whether to continue waiving nuclear sanctions, with the next deadline due on Friday. Analysts say there is a chance he may use the latest unrest as a pretext to reimpose sanctions.