Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said the Iranian delegation’s foremost purpose at this year’s United Nations General Assembly is to take the world stage and defend the righteousness, rights and interests of the Iranian nation after a cowardly war of aggression by the United States and the Zionist regime.
Speaking to reporters in New York on Monday night local time at the start of his visit for the 81st UNGA session, Araghchi said the trip was taking place after that war and the developments that followed, “in a situation that, in truth, continues as a state of war.”
“Our most important objective is to appear on a major international platform to defend the righteousness, the rights and the interests of the Iranian people,” he said.
The foreign minister described the United Nations as the world’s largest international platform. Whether the organization had succeeded in its declared aims of peace, security and justice was, he said, a separate question. What mattered to Tehran was that the UN still offered nations a tribune from which to carry their positions to the world.
“That second aspect is of great importance to us,” Araghchi said. “Every year we have used this opportunity to set out the rightful positions of the Islamic Republic of Iran — our well-known stances — and to defend the rights of the Iranian people.”
This year, he added, that tribune would also be used to place before the world the oppression suffered by the Iranian people and to honor the country’s martyrs, “including the martyrs of the Minab school and, above all, our martyred Leader.”
Last year, President Masoud Pezeshkian used the same platform to expose the atrocities of the 12-day war. “Naturally, we find ourselves in an even more critical situation this year,” Araghchi said.
President’s Program and a Packed Diplomatic Calendar
The Iranian foreign minister said the president would deliver an address at the General Assembly and hold meetings with intellectuals, media figures and thinkers, both Iranian and non-Iranian. Pezeshkian will also give interviews to various outlets and conduct numerous bilateral meetings with heads of state.
Araghchi said he himself would meet foreign ministers on the sidelines. Those talks, he noted, were a valuable chance to review bilateral relations, present Iran’s positions and defend the nation’s interests.
He also pointed to side events, including an environment summit, and said Iran would take part in gatherings of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the Non-Aligned Movement and other bodies that use the New York week for their own meetings.
“Ultimately, the scheduled meetings — and the fact that everyone is present — offer an opportunity for bilateral discussions to review Iran’s relations with various countries,” he said. “This time will be used effectively within an intensive four-to-five-day program.”
UN Theme Exposes a Collapsed Trust
Araghchi said the theme chosen for this year’s General Assembly — restoring trust in the United Nations — was itself an admission that confidence in the organization had eroded and, in practice, vanished, because of its failure to uphold international peace and security.
He placed the blame on powers that grant themselves the right to act as they please, ignore international institutions, international law and even the collective conscience of humanity, and claim immunity for themselves and their clients.
“As a result, we see a criminal entity like the Zionist regime given a completely free hand to do whatever it wishes,” he said. “Yet, regrettably, Western and European countries — who style themselves as champions of human rights and humanitarian law — remain silent in the face of these actions.”
Iran, he said, had seen no serious condemnation from those same governments of the crimes committed in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Source: Agencies (edited by Al-Manar)