MOSCOW, March 4 (Reuters) - Russia accused the United States on Wednesday of using an imaginary threat from Iran as a pretext to overthrow its constitutional order, and said Washington's calls for Iranians to seize power from their leaders were cynical and inhumane.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the U.S. had used negotiations with Iran, which were taking place as recently as last week, as a cover to disguise a plan for regime change there.
Russia has a strategic partnership treaty with Iran and President Vladimir Putin has condemned what he called the cynical murder of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war launched by the U.S. and Israel on Saturday.
"There is no doubt that the imaginary, invented Iranian threat, repeatedly stated over many years, was merely a pretext for the implementation of a long-cherished plan to violently overthrow the constitutional order of a sovereign state... that Washington and Tel Aviv dislike," Zakharova told reporters.
Without mentioning U.S. President Donald Trump by name, Zakharova alluded to his call for Iranians to take power from the clerical leadership.
"It is even more cynical and inhumane to hear calls for the Iranians to seize power, as the West says, when the West is literally tearing ripping these hands from the Iranians," she said.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editingh by Andrew Heavens)
