Speaking in Qatar, US President Donald Trump expressed confidence that a solution would be found to the standoff with Iran "one way or the other".
The head of Iran’s Expediency Council says the US president's recent remarks against Iran stem from what he called his “mental imbalance”.
Sadegh Amoli Larijani called on Iran’s president to respond to the American leader’s insults.
Iranian officials have been outraged by Trump's fiery speech in Riyadh, in which he sharply criticized Iranian leaders for what he called destabilizing the region and mishandling Iran's wealth.
"It's their decision, because we want to see Iran do well and thrive and be successful and everybody be happy," US President Donald Trump said at a state dinner in Doha alongside Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. "We want to have this end peacefully, not horribly."
"We're going to try and get it done. They have to move quickly ... in a certain sense, I guess I'm a good friend (to Iran), because a lot of people would rather have me take a much more harsh road. But I know that if we can avoid that road, that would be a great thing."
Trump addressed the Qatari emir and said, “I hope you can help me with the Iran situation. It’s a perilous situation, and we want to do the right thing."
"We want to do it something that's going to save maybe millions of lives. Because things like that get started and they get out of control. I've seen it over and over again. They go to war and things get out of control, and we're not going to let that happen.”
Alarge bloc of Congressional Republicans is urging US President Donald Trump to maintain a hardline stance on Iran, calling in an open letter signed by more than 200 lawmakers for the complete dismantling of Iran's uranium enrichment technology.
All Republican senators except one, along with 177 GOP representatives, signed the letter warning against any agreement resembling the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under former President Barack Obama.
That accord, they argued, merely delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions while allowing it to continue enrichment activities under international oversight.
“The United States cannot afford another deal that gives Iran room to maneuver,” the lawmakers wrote. “The regime must be stripped of all enrichment capacity — even for peaceful energy purposes.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian delivered a fiery response on Wednesday to his American counterpart’s speech in Riyadh the previous day in which Donald Trump accused Iran’s leaders of mismanagement and destabilizing the Middle East.
Pezeshkian rejected the allegations in sweeping terms, turning the blame on Washington and its allies.
“Did we kill sixty thousand women and children in Gaza within a year, under bombs and missiles? Did we cut off water, bread, and medicine from those poor people? Are we the threat?” he asked in a speech in Kermanshah in western Iran.
Referring to US arms sales to Iran's Arab neighbors, Pezeshkian said, “When they boast of having missiles and bombs beyond imagination, is it us who are causing war and bloodshed—or is it them, who flood this region with weapons and ammunition?”
“You want the countries of this region to turn on each other by handing out bombs and missiles, and then you say you’re peace-seekers?” he added.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman accused US President Donald Trump of seeking to destabilize regional ties after he delivered a sharply critical speech in Riyadh on Tuesday.
"The presence of a US official in our region making false accusations against the Iranian people can only be interpreted as a sign of his ill intent toward both the Iranian people and regional relations,” Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in an interview with Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
In his speech, Trump pilloried Iran's leadership and praised those of its Arab neighbors.
"(It) was a deliberate move to sow division between Iran and the countries of the region,” Baghaei said.
The United States Treasury on Wednesday announced new sanctions on six Iranian and Chinese individuals along with 12 entities from the two countries it accused of supporting the ballistic missile program of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
According to the treasury, the blacklisted people and companies supported Iranian efforts to build carbon fiber materials for ballistic missiles.
“The United States cannot allow Iran to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles," secretary of the treasury Scott Bessent said in a statement. "The Iranian regime’s relentless and irresponsible pursuit of advanced ballistic missile capabilities, including its efforts to indigenize its production capacity, represents an unacceptable threat to the United States and the stability of the region.”
“The United States remains strongly committed to disrupting these schemes and holding accountable those who enable Iran’s military adventurism.”
US President Donald Trump was asked on Wednesday whether he was prepared to exert more pressure on Iran.
"Let's see what happens over the next week," he replied aboard Air Force One during his ongoing visit to the Middle East.
"The Islamic Republic is not pursuing, and has never pursued, nuclear weaponization," the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Eslami said on Wednesday.
"Iran will not accept the dismantling of its enrichment program, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has communicated this position to the United States," he added.
"Standing up against the crimes and barbarism of the Zionist regime in Gaza and the West's support for this bloodshed is a collective duty," Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told a group of Red Crescent Society rescue workers on Monday.
"Today, the world is being run by these human-like beasts, and the Islamic Republic considers it its duty to stand against their savagery and bloodshed," he added, according to a readout of his remarks published by his website on Wednesday.
The remarks were among the sharpest since talks between the United States and Iran began last month, and were published after US President Donald Trump lambasted Tehran's foreign and domestic policy in a Riyadh speech on Tuesday.
"It is this sense of duty that has driven enemies like the Westerners to confront the Islamic Republic, because if we stopped opposing their barbarity, they would have no enmity with us."
"The main issue of the Western bullies as the Islamic Republic's rejection of their false civilization and said: Falsehood is doomed to decline and destruction," he added.
Hossein Salami, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), characterize current events as the “era of historic battle between Islamic forces and global satanic powers".
Salami further accused President Donald Trump of trying to "make the Iranian nation lose hope in the Islamic Revolution and the system."
His comments came a day after Trump's sharp criticism of Iran's leadership in a lengthy speech in Saudi Arabia.
"Iran's decades of neglect and mismanagement have left the country plagued by rolling blackouts lasting for hours a day ... While your skill has turned dry deserts into fertile farmland, Iran's leaders have managed to turn green farmland into dry deserts as their corrupt water mafia ... causes droughts and empty river beds. They get rich," the US president said.
In his Wednesday remarks, Salami also said that "the Iranian nation is invincible and cannot be humiliated on the battlefield, nor will it be defeated in the field of diplomacy."