This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has reiterated his demand for guarantees from the United States that it will not again withdraw from a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program should negotiations to revive the deal be successful.
“We have before us the experience of America’s withdrawal from the (deal),” Raisi said at the UN General Assembly on September 21. “With that experience and this perspective, can we ignore the important issue of guarantees for a durable agreement?”
Raisi also said Tehran wanted former U.S. President Donald Trump to face trial for the 2020 killing of Iran’s top Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in an American drone attack in Iraq.
Trump in 2018 abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran had agreed to restrain its atomic program in return for relief from economic sanctions. Tehran has since been rolling back its commitments in violation of the deal.
Raisi said Iran is not seeking to build or obtain nuclear weapons “and such weapons have no place in our doctrine.” He also denounced the lack of pressure on Israel, an undeclared nuclear power, saying that Iran has complied with international commitments.
Raisi also sought to deflect criticism of the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police in Tehran for allegedly breaking the hijab rules.
Amini’s death has sparked deadly protests and an outcry over the Islamic Republic’s heavy-handed policing of dissent and the morality police’s increasingly violent treatment of young women.
Raisi said Iran “rejects some of the double standards of some governments vis-a-vis human rights.” As long as there is a “double standard where attention is solely focused on one side and not all equally, we will not have true justice and fairness.”
He added: “Human rights belongs to all, but unfortunately it is trampled upon by many governments,” drawing references to the discovery of unmarked graves of indigenous people in Canada, the suffering of the Palestinians, and images of migrant children held in cages in the United States.
