The Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are in New York to take part at the 80th General Assembly of the United Nations with a crucial working agenda to prevent re-imposition of the UN nuclear sanctions.
President Pezeshkian delivered his speech on Wednesday at the annual event in which he stressed that Tehran “has never sought and will never seek” to build a nuclear bomb.
"I hereby declare once more before this assembly that Iran has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb. We do not seek nuclear weapons,” he said days before the September 28 deadline for likely return of the pre-2015 nuclear sanctions.
The chief executive also slammed the European powers France, Germany, and the U.K. which are parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal signed in Vienna for referring their dispute with Tehran to the UN Security Council on August 28 calling for the snapback of sanctions.
Following the speech, Pezeshkian met his French counterpart Emanuel Macron for talks which were expected to focus on the nuclear standoff with the European powers and Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA in the wake of attacks on its nuclear facilities.
After Pezeshkian's departure for New York on Tuesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said in a televised speech that Tehran will continue nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes and will “not surrender to pressures”.
In remarks broadcast after the UN speech of US President Donald Trump, he rejected nuclear negotiations with Washington as a “dead-end” which is not in Tehran’s interests stressing that Iran is not and will not pursue a nuclear bomb.
Foreign Minister Araghchi has been in last-minute diplomatic contacts meeting the IAEA Director General Rafeal Grossi twice in the last two days and held a joint meeting with the E3 foreign ministers and the EU foreign policy chief on the sidelines of the assembly.
“The joint meeting reviewed the progress of the talks held over the past month to find diplomatic solutions to the Iranian nuclear issue and prevent an escalation of tensions ... it was decided to continue consultations with all parties involved,” the Foreign Ministry said in press release.
In Tehran, Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in a meeting with members of the Chamber of Commerce said the snapback mechanism was activated only after Iran rejected the new condition of the European powers to limit the range of its ballistic missiles to 500 kilometres.
According to the top security official, the European troika has laid down the three conditions of resumption of nuclear talks with the U.S., return of the IAEA inspectors, and access to the stockpiled enriched uranium in return for a six-month suspension of the snapback mechanism.
In the meantime, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei strongly criticized the U.S. restrictions on the Iranian delegation in New York as a new level of hostility to disrupt Iran’s diplomatic activities.
“Applying such cheap restrictions on our diplomats' movements and even on their daily grocery shopping is not only a blatant violation of the US obligations under the Headquarters Agreement but also a new low in terms of showcasing the extent of animosity of US administration toward Iranians,” he said in a statement.
President Donald Trump in his speech on day 1 at the UN General Assembly said that Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons despite Iran insisting that its nuclear programme was strictly for civilian use.
Iran’s Parliament is set to discuss withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty on Sunday coinciding the date the looming pre-2015 sanctions could be re-instated.
Last June, the lawmakers suspended Tehran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog after Israel and US bombed Iran’s major nuclear facilities during the 12-day war in June following a non-compliance resolution which Iran says served as a pretext for attacking its sites.
Kazakhstan is open to expanding its oil export routes through Azerbaijan and advancing joint energy infrastructure projects across the Caspian region,...
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova praised Georgia for resisting Western pressure (30 May), defending its national interests and pu...
More than 1,500 pages of government documents relating to Peter Mandelson's appointment and tenure as UK ambassador to the U.S. have been published, r...
As Armenia approaches parliamentary elections, Russia appears to be increasing political and economic pressure on Yerevan, signalling that closer inte...
Afghanistan’s consul general in Mashhad and the governor of Iran’s Khorasan Razavi province have discussed expanding trade, improving border trans...
Kazakhstan is open to expanding its oil export routes through Azerbaijan and advancing joint energy infrastructure projects across the Caspian region, Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov told AnewZ in an exclusive interview in Baku.
As Armenia approaches parliamentary elections, Russia appears to be increasing political and economic pressure on Yerevan, signalling that closer integration with the EU could lead to significant changes in labour, transport and energy arrangements between the two countries.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has withdrawn the appointment of a senior U.S. official to a top leadership role because of delays in U.S. payments, according to a statement published on Monday (1 June).
Turkish authorities have launched an investigation into a passenger bus crash in southwestern Türkiye that killed eight people and injured 33 others over the weekend.
U.S. rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, performed to a crowd of 118,000 people in Istanbul on Saturday night, marking his first concert in Europe in more than a decade, despite being barred from performing in several countries over past antisemitic remarks.
Okinawa lost transport links and suffered widespread power outages on Monday (1 June) as Severe Tropical Storm Jangmi brought destructive winds and heavy rain to Japan's south-western islands.
Donald Trump said he is “in no hurry” to reach a deal with Iran, insisting the U.S. is slowly getting what it wants. He warned military action remains an option if talks fail. Meanwhile, U.S. forces said they fired a missile at a vessel trying to breach Washington’s blockade of Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has held talks with Lebanese President and Israeli Prime Minister on efforts to ease tensions between Israel and Lebanon. According to a U.S. official, Washington has proposed a plan aimed at achieving a gradual de-escalation of hostilities.
The World Health Organisation’s designation of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is a stark reminder that Ebola remains a persistent global health threat rather than a disease of the past.
When Armenians vote on 7 June, they will be voting in an election shaped by months of political change and a rapidly deepening relationship with the European Union. The result may not only determine who governs Armenia but also the future direction of the country's geopolitical alignment.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway will resume operations on 2 June after extensive modernisation works. Officials from Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye are set to gather in Akhalkalaki for a launch event marking the reopening of one of the Middle Corridor's most important transport links.
Kazakhstan is open to expanding its oil export routes through Azerbaijan and advancing joint energy infrastructure projects across the Caspian region, Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov told AnewZ in an exclusive interview in Baku.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova praised Georgia for resisting Western pressure (30 May), defending its national interests and pursuing a "multi-vector foreign policy" - language that closely mirrors the rhetoric of the ruling Georgian Dream party.
As Armenia approaches parliamentary elections, Russia appears to be increasing political and economic pressure on Yerevan, signalling that closer integration with the EU could lead to significant changes in labour, transport and energy arrangements between the two countries.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment