Iran’s IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency has blamed US Democrats for protests in Esfahan alleging that it is related to the upcoming resumption of nuclear talks.

The hardliner media in Iran has tried to accuse provocateurs and paid mercenaries for protests in the country’s third largest city that began more than two weeks by farmers demanding water and turned into anti-government unrest after security forces attacked demonstrators on Thursday and Friday.

But Fars on Saturday took the allegations to a new level by accusing US Democrats of “once again” fomenting unrest to gain leverage days before talks in Vienna are due to start for the revival of the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.

It is not clear why the Democrats are being accused of using an old tactic, except for large protests in 2009 during the Obama presidency that were triggered when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the presidential race and millions of people came out to the streets to challenge the hastily announced official results.

Following the 2009 protests, which the Obama administration did not vocally support, there were no other large protests in Iran until after Donald Trump’s election, when nationwide unrest broke out against economic hardship in late December 2017.