WASHINGTON: Tehran would be serious about reviving a deal on its nuclear program if there were guarantees the United States would not again withdraw from it, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
Last month, Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran needed stronger guarantees from Washington for the revival of the 2015 deal and urged the UN atomic watchdog to drop its “politically motivated probes” of Tehran’s nuclear work.
Speaking to the CBS show 60 Minutes in a interview conducted last Tuesday, Raisi said, “If it’s a good deal and fair deal, we would be serious about reaching an agreement.”
In his remarks ahead of a visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, Raisi added, “It needs to be lasting. There need to be guarantees. If there were a guarantee, then the Americans could not withdraw from the deal.”
He said the Americans had broken their promises on the deal, under which Tehran had restrained its nuclear program in exchange for relief from US, European Union and UN economic sanctions.
“They did it unilaterally. They said that, ‘I am out of the deal.’ Now making promises is becoming meaningless,” he said.
“We cannot trust the Americans because of the behavior that we have already seen from them. That is why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust.”
The US network described the interview with journalist Lesley Stahl as Raisi’s first with a Western reporter.
“I was told how to dress, not to sit before he did, and not to interrupt him,” Stahl said.
During months of talks with Washington in Vienna, Tehran demanded US assurances that no future US president would abandon the deal as former President Donald Trump did in 2018.
The deal appeared near revival in March.
But indirect talks between Tehran and Washington then broke down over several issues, including Tehran’s insistence that the International Atomic Energy Agency close its investigation into uranium traces found at three undeclared sites before the pact is revived.
There has been no sign that Tehran and Washington will manage to overcome their impasse but Iran is expected to use the UN General Assembly to keep the diplomatic ball rolling by repeating its willingness to reach a sustainable deal.
However, President Joe Biden cannot provide the ironclad assurances Iran seeks because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.
Iran president repeats call for nuclear deal guarantees ahead of UN visit
https://arab.news/j5maj
Iran president repeats call for nuclear deal guarantees ahead of UN visit
- During months of talks with Washington in Vienna, Tehran demanded US assurances that no future US president would abandon the deal as former President Donald Trump did in 2018
UN rights chief Shocked by ‘unbearable’ Darfur atrocities
- Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur
PORT SUDAN: Nearly three years of war have put the Sudanese people through “hell,” the UN’s rights chief said on Sunday, blasting the vast sums spent on advanced weaponry at the expense of humanitarian aid and the recruitment of child soldiers.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by a conflict between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that has left tens of thousands of people dead and around 11 million displaced.
Speaking in Port Sudan during his first wartime visit, UN Human Rights commissioner Volker Turk said the population had endured “horror and hell,” calling it “despicable” that funds that “should be used to alleviate the suffering of the population” are instead spent on advanced weapons, particularly drones.
More than 21 million people are facing acute food insecurity, and two-thirds of Sudan’s population is in urgent need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.
In addition to the world’s largest hunger and displacement crisis, Sudan is also facing “the increasing militarization of society by all parties to the conflict, including through the arming of civilians and recruitment and use of children,” Turk added.
He said he had heard testimony of “unbearable” atrocities from survivors of attacks in Darfur, and warned of similar crimes unfolding in the Kordofan region — the current epicenter of the fighting.
Testimony of these atrocities must be heard by “the commanders of this conflict and those who are arming, funding and profiting from this war,” he said.
Mediation efforts have failed to produce a ceasefire, even after international outrage intensified last year with reports of mass killings, rape, and abductions during the RSF’s takeover of El-Fasher in Darfur.
“We must ensure that the perpetrators of these horrific violations face justice regardless of the affiliation,” Turk said on Sunday, adding that repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure could constitute “war crimes.”
He called on both sides to “cease intolerable attacks against civilian objects that are indispensable to the civilian population, including markets, health facilities, schools and shelters.”
Turk again warned on Sunday that crimes similar to those seen in El-Fasher could recur in volatile Kordofan, where the RSF has advanced, besieging and attacking several key cities.
Hundreds of thousands face starvation across the region, where more than 65,000 people have been displaced since October, according to the latest UN figures.
