While addressing the 80th annual session of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, September 24, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated his country’s resolve to not seek a nuclear weapon.

Pezeshkian claimed that it is not the threat of sanctions or war but its religious conviction and the dictate of the country’s supreme leader which prevents Iran from developing nuclear bombs and any other kind of weapons of mass destruction.

He questioned the countries accusing Iran of developing a nuclear bomb while they themselves possess the “largest nuclear arsenals” and have violated the provisions of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) through the years to make their weapons more deadly.

Pezeshkian rejected the allegations as baseless and spurious, claiming Iran’s nuclear program has always been for peaceful purposes.

He claimed that the move by the three European countries also known as E3, the UK, France, and Germany to initiate a “snapback mechanism” to restore all international sanctions against the country was an act in bad faith.

The Iranian president maintained that Europeans are acting at the behest of the US after failing to implement the nuclear deal they themselves signed and supporting Israeli and US military aggression against his country in June.

The Europeans have used various deceptive and false measures to pursue the US agenda to present Iran as guilty and to bring “the proud people of Iran to their knees,” Pezeshkian accused, claiming that their motives would not be fulfilled as the Iranian people are determined and Western actions have no legitimate base.

Pezeshkian repeated his country’s position that the joint Israeli and US attack in June was a “savage” violation of international law and “a grave betrayal of diplomacy” because when the attack was launched Iran was in talks with the US over its nuclear program.

“This brazen act of aggression, in addition to murdering a number of commanders, citizens, children, women, scientists, and intellectual elites of my country inflicted a grievous blow upon international trust and the very prospect of peace in the region,” Pezeshkian said.

Delusional scheme of “Greater Israel”

Pezeshkian claimed that after perpetuating genocide and aparthied in Gaza and attacking several countries in the region, including Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Qatar with complete impunity, the criminal zionist regime in Israel is boldly proclaiming the idea of “Greater Israel”.

“This ludicrous and delusional scheme of Greater Israel is proclaimed with brazenness” by the leadership of the Zionist regime, Pezeshkian noted, claiming that none in the world is safe from the “aggressive machinations” of the Israeli regime if it is not countered collectively.

“Should we fail to confront” these breaches to international norms, such “aberrations shall spread to engulf the world,” Pezeshkian warned.

Pezeshkian underlined that through its careless provocations, Israel has made it very clear to the countries in the region and the global powers that it no longer considers “normalization through peaceful means” desirable.

Israel wants to establish their presence in the region through the naked use of force, he claimed.

Pezeshkian expressed his confidence that such a brazen show of power and bullying would never create any peace in the region and proposed a collective regional understanding against genocide, destruction, and instability.

Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s long held proposal of an understanding to make the region free of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction in addition to proposing a collective defense and development mechanism for all nations in the region.

Claiming that under such an understanding, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of a particular country would be a non-negotiable principle.

Pezeshkian stated that Iran’s vision of the region is based on shared values of human dignity and cultural diversity, along with collective security with defensive cooperation and the joint response to threats. It is based on the idea of collective development through joint investments in infrastructure and modern sciences, energy security, and environmental protection.

In this context, Iran welcomed the recent mutual defense agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, calling it the first step towards creating a “comprehensive regional security system”.

Concluding his speech, Pezeshkian claimed that “true security is not achieved through force but through confidence building, mutual respect, regional convergence, and multilateralism grounded in international laws.”

The post Iran will “never seek to build a nuclear bomb,” declares president at UNGA appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via this RSS feed