LONDON: The US must show “goodwill and determination” if it wants to revive the 2015 nuclear deal abandoned by then-President Donald Trump five years ago, Iran’s president told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
“By exiting the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the United States violated the agreement,” said Ebrahim Raisi. “America should demonstrate its goodwill and determination.”
Trump withdrew the US from the deal, which he said was too soft on Iran, and imposed harsh sanctions on Tehran.
Efforts to revive the JCPOA stalled last year, when diplomats said Tehran rejected what EU mediators called their “final offer” to bring Iran back into the fold.
“These sanctions haven’t yielded the desired results. It’s time now for the United States to bring a cessation to its wrong path and choose the right side,” Raisi said.
He added that the US “has fanned the flames of violence in Ukraine in order to weaken the European countries. This is a long-term plan, unfortunately.” Raisi said: “We support any initiative for a cessation of hostilities and the war.”
Following last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US imposed fresh sanctions on Iran for providing drones to Moscow to aid its war effort.
Immediately after Iran’s Raisi began to deliver his speech, Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, marched out of the General Assembly hall while waving the picture of Mahsa Amini, the young woman fatally beaten by Iran’s morality police.
“I left the speech to make it clear that the State of Israel stands by the Iranian people,” said Erdan, according to a statement sent to Reuters by Israel’s mission to the United Nations.
Iran and Israel, which Tehran refuses to recognise, have been locked in a shadow war for decades, with mutual allegations of sabotage and assassination plots.
— with Reuters
