March 5 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump told Axios on Thursday that he needs to be personally involved in choosing Iran’s next leader.
Axios quoted Trump as saying in the interview: “A Khamenei son is unacceptable to me. We want someone who can bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
“I have to be a part of this appointment, just like Delcy (Rodriguez) was in Venezuela,” Trump said.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran’s late supreme leader, survived a U.S. and Israeli airstrike on Iran that killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
Hardline Mojtaba, a mid-level cleric with close ties to Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, is one of the most influential figures in Iran’s clerical establishment and is seen as a possible successor to his father.
Iran has yet to announce a new leader.
(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Bhargav Acharya and Ryan Patrick Jones; Editing by Caitlin Webber)