In his first speech at the UN’s annual gathering of world leaders on Tuesday, Pezeshkian also strongly criticised Israel for “its genocide in Gaza” and its “atrocities”, “crimes against humanity” and “desperate barbarism” in its war on the Palestinian territory as well as attacks on Lebanon.
“I aim to lay a strong foundation for my country’s entry into a new era, positioning it to play an effective and constructive role in the evolving global order,” Pezeshkian told the UNGA.
“We seek peace for all and have no intention of conflict with any country … Iran opposes war and emphasises the need for an immediate cessation of military conflict in Ukraine,” he added.
“We are ready to engage with participants of the 2015 nuclear deal. If the deal’s commitments are implemented fully and in good faith, dialogue on other issues can follow,” he stressed.
Directly addressing the American people, Pezeshkian listed a number of Iranian grievances, including crippling sanctions placed on Iran by the United States and the 2020 assassinating of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike during the era of former President Donald Trump.
The US, under Trump, abandoned the 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and six world powers in 2018 and reimposed tough sanctions on Iran. Efforts since to revive the pact have failed.
The Iranian president’s speech came as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said that he sensed a greater willingness by Iranian officials to engage with the agency in a more meaningful way and that he hoped to travel to Tehran in October.
Grossi held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the sidelines of the UNGA on Tuesday.
“What I see is an expressed willingness to re-engage with us in a more meaningful fashion,” Grossi told Reuters in an interview.
Pezeshkian said the Israeli regime has been defeated in its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and now cannot “repair its myth of invincibility” through resorting to barbarism against Lebanon.
He was referring to the regime’s failure in the face of the Gaza-based resistance movement Hamas in the Palestinian territory and the escalation of the regime’s attacks against Lebanon since the onset of the war.
As part of the escalation, the regime carried out extensive airstrikes against southern and eastern Lebanon on Monday, killing at least 569 people, including 50 children and 94 women, and wounding 5,000 others.
The attacks came less than a week after the regime killed 38 people in an attack on a residential building in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital Beirut. A couple of days earlier, it had also detonated thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkie radios across the country, killing at least 39 people and wounding 3,000 others.
Pezeshkian said, “The insane Israeli barbarism in Lebanon should be stopped before setting the region and the world on fire.”
“Naturally, the blind and terrorist crimes of the past days and the extensive aggression against Lebanon that shed the blood of thousands of innocent people will not remain unanswered,” he added.
“Those governments that stand in the way of cessation of this terrible catastrophe and still call themselves defenders of the human rights, have to bear the consequences [of these atrocities],” the president noted.
Pezeshkian, meanwhile, pointed to the regime’s killing of more than 41,000 Palestinians, mostly woman and children, during the course of the Gaza war that began on October 7.
“The people of the world have witnessed the nature of the Israeli regime throughout the past year. They have seen how the regime’s rulers perpetrate crimes,” he said.
The regime, though, refers to its “genocide, war crime, and state terrorism as ‘legitimate defense’ and identifies hospitals, kindergartens, and schools as ‘legitimate military targets,’” the president added.
