Trump thanks Iran for not following through on executions of political prisoners

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump took the unusual step on Friday of thanking the Iranian government for not following through on executions of what he said was meant to be hundreds of political prisoners.

“Iran canceled the hanging of over 800 people,” Trump told reporters while leaving the White House to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

He added “and I greatly respect the fact that they canceled.”

The Republican president also suggested on his social media site that more than 800 people had been set to be executed in Iran, but he said they now won’t be.

“Thank you!” Trump posted.

Those sentiments come after Trump spent days suggesting that the U.S. might strike Iran militarily if its government triggered mass killings during widespread protests that swept that country but now have quieted.

The death toll from those demonstrations continues to rise, activists say. Still, Trump seemed to hint that the prospects for U.S. military action were fading since Iran had held off on the executions.

The president’s rosy assessment did not appear to match the more complicated situation in Iran. Still, his pronouncements seemed to be more evidence of him backing away from his early comments that suggested a U.S. attack on that country might be imminent.

Trump had previously posted of Iran and the protesters there, “Help is on the way.” But asked if that was still the case on Friday, he replied: “Well, we’re going to see.”

Questioned specifically if Arab and Israeli officials might have convinced him to back down on seeming suggestions that he would strike Iran, Trump said, “Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself.”

“You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone,” he said. “They canceled the hangings. That had a big impact.”

Trump did not clarify who he was speaking to in Iran to confirm the state of planned executions. That’s important since, even as he was offering Iran kind words, harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appeared to have successfully stifled demonstrations across the country.

Protests that began Dec. 28 over an ailing economy and morphed into protests directly challenging the country’s theocracy seem to have stopped. There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, where shopping and street life have returned to outward normality, though a week-old internet blackout continued.

Authorities have not reported any unrest elsewhere in the country.

Still, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the death toll from demonstrations at 2,797, and that number continues to rise.

Meanwhile, Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged the U.S. to make good on its perhaps now dwindling pledge to intervene, calling Trump “a man of his word.”