TEHRAN: Iran’s UN envoy urged the United States to remove its “illegal, inhumane and immoral” sanctions against the Islamic republic, official IRNA news agency reported on Friday.
Majid Takht Ravanchi said that sanctions are as destructive as “terrorism and war crimes.”The U.S. sanctions have hindered Iran’s access to food, medicine and medical equipment amid COVID-19 pandemic, Takht Ravanchi was quoted as saying.
Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday, he also called for removal of sieges on Yemenis and Palestinians, saying “no issue is more urgent than the immediate lifting of inhumane siege on the Yemeni people as well as illegal siege on the Gaza Strip.”
The UN Security Council should oblige all warring sides in the conflicts to observe the rights of access to food supplies and humanitarian trades and medicine availability, the envoy added. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is determined not to will not race to renew a nuclear deal with Iran before June elections widely expected to see the rise of a more hardline president in Tehran, a US envoy said in an interview released Wednesday.
“We don’t intend to base the pace of our discussions on the Iranian elections — the pace will be determined by how far we can get, consistent with defending US national security interests,” Rob Malley, the State Department pointman on Iran, told Axios.
“In other words, we won’t rush or slow things because of the Iranian elections.”
A number of supporters of diplomacy with Iran have called for renewed efforts before the election and the exit of President Hassan Rouhani, who staked his legacy on a 2015 denuclearization agreement that is on life support.
Some experts, however, counter that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ultimately calls the shots in Iran and that a new president would at most change the optics.
Biden has sought to return to the 2015 agreement, which promised Iran sanctions relief but was trashed by former president Donald Trump, who imposed sweeping measures to hurt the Iranian economy and challenge Tehran’s regional role.
Iran has so far balked at US overtures for talks, saying that Biden must lift sanctions before Tehran returns to full compliance with the nuclear deal by reversing steps it took to protest Trump’s actions.
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