The Iranian president, Masud Pezeshkian, reiterated this Tuesday his commitment to "firmly defend" Tehran's positions during his trip to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, amid the peak of the crisis in the Middle East following the surprise offensive launched on February 28 by the United States and Israel against the country.
"We will firmly defend Iran's positions in international forums," he stated before departing for the United States, emphasizing that the issues he will present before the UN "are an expression of Iranian oppression, the crimes committed, and the distrust that has been generated" following that offensive.
The leader insisted that Iran "went to the negotiating table multiple times and signed agreements," but that "everyone saw how the commitments were not respected and the writings were violated (by the United States)," according to public television IRIB.
In this context, he pointed out that "people cannot be forced to obey. What happens in Gaza, Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and other places reflects the reality that people observe around the world," accusing "the enemies" of "blocking all possible avenues to force the Iranian nation to surrender."
He added that "the enemies block all possible avenues to force the Iranian nation to surrender. Having not achieved their objectives through military means, they try to act through other avenues (...) and seek to take maximum advantage of our weaknesses to lead us to a situation of weakness and to surrender from within."
At the same time, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi is already in New York and has emphasized that his presence "takes place after the cowardly war unleashed by the United States and the Zionist regime," which has generated "a state of war" throughout the region.
He explained that "it is natural that our main objective is to be present on a large international platform to defend the legitimacy, rights, and interests of the Iranian people. The United Nations constitutes the largest international platform," although he admitted that "the degree of success" of the organization in "achieving its objectives of establishing peace, security, and justice" remains "under debate." Nevertheless, he highlighted that the UN "provides countries a platform to convey their positions and messages to the world."
Araqchi has advanced that, given the current situation, the General Assembly will serve this year "to denounce the oppression suffered by the Iranian people and to honor the martyrs of Iran" due to the U.S.-Israeli offensive, among them the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died in the early moments of the conflict along with other high officials.
The head of Iranian diplomacy has criticized that there are states that "usurp the right to act at their whim" on the international stage, "without showing any respect for international institutions, International Law, or the collective conscience of humanity."
"We see that a criminal regime like the Zionist regime has completely free hands to act at its whim and, unfortunately, Western and European countries, which consider themselves champions of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, remain silent in the face of this situation," he has denounced.
Likewise, he lamented that "we have not seen any serious condemnation from these countries regarding what is happening in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, nor about the crimes committed; instead, it is enough for some problem to arise in a corner of a country like Iran for them to shed crocodile tears, sigh, and lament."
For this reason, he admitted that "it is natural that there is no trust left in an organization influenced by these countries," referring to the UN, and emphasized the need to open a debate on "how to regain this trust" and explain to the international community "how trust in the United Nations has been lost and how it could be restored."