TEHRAN (Iran News) – US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his threat to strike Iranian cultural heritage sites, asserting to a group of reporters that the United States has the right to bomb such targets.

Talking to reporters on Sunday in the White House, Trump dismissed criticism from human rights organizations pointing out that such an action would be considered a war crime under international law.

“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” Trump said.

On Saturday, Trump claimed that his military would hit “very important” targets, including cultural heritage sites if the Iranians want to take a retaliatory action against the US assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

“We have … targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran” said Trump in a tweet while making a reference to the occupation of the former US embassy in Tehran in 1979.

The threat came after Iranian authorities vowed vengeance for the US assassination of General Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds force, Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis as well as several of their Iranian and Iraqi comrades in Baghdad early on Friday.

Many inside the US and across the world have criticized Trump for ordering the deadly airstrike, saying the move could lead to a major conflict in the Middle East.

Trump threatening threat to strike 52 important cultural sites in Iran has provoked a strong backlash, with many calling it a “war crime.”

US Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden blasted Trump’s tweets on Iran as “incredibly dangerous and irresponsible”.

“When he makes statements like that, it just seems to me to be he’s going off on a tweetstorm on his own, and it’s incredibly dangerous and irresponsible,” Biden told reporters.

“I have no idea whether he’s coordinated with any of our allies. I have no idea whether or not he has the support of his own generals,” the former vice president added. “This is a guy who seems to be unmoored.”

On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also took to his official Twitter account to remind Trump that although “barbarians have come and ravaged our cities, razed our monuments and burnt our libraries” throughout history, Iranians still stand tall.

Zarif also drew an analogy between Trump’s assertions and Daesh’s crimes in destroying the cultural heritage of some regional countries, noting that the US president was “hallucinating about emulating ISIS war crimes by targeting our cultural heritage.”

“Having committed grave breaches of international law in Friday’s cowardly assassinations, @realdonaldtrump threatens to commit again new breaches of JUS COGENS,” Zarif tweeted. “Targeting cultural sites is a WAR CRIME.”

“President Trump should publicly reverse his threats against Iran’s cultural property and make clear that he will not authorize nor order war crimes,” Andrea Prasow, acting Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“The US Defense Department should publicly reaffirm its commitment to abide by the laws of war and comply only with lawful military orders,” Prasow added.