Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has appreciated United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for his condemnation of the US-Israeli war of aggression on Iran.
In a meeting with Guterres held on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Shanghai Plus summits in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on Tuesday, Pezeshkian also urged a stronger UN role in handling global crises.
During the meeting, Pezeshkian said the US and the Israeli regime had ignored the most basic principles of human rights during the war on Iran that ended as part of a ceasefire in mid-April.
“The attack by the United States on Iran, the martyrdom of the country’s leadership and a number of officials and citizens, including schoolchildren, as well as the targeting of our country’s infrastructure, demonstrated that the most basic principles of humanity and international law have been disregarded,” he said.
The Iranian president said the Islamic Republic will under no circumstances accept the use of force and threats, and believes that the only path to ending the current confrontation is for the United States to accept the rights of the Iranian nation and return to the memorandum of understanding signed between the countries in June.
He said Iran seeks to establish stability and security in West Asia through engagement with regional countries, adding that the United States and Israel remain among the main obstacles to achieving that goal.
Pezeshkian described the crimes committed by the Israeli regime against the people of the region, especially in Gaza and Lebanon, as “alarming and unacceptable.”
Guterres, for his part, said he had always pursued the rule of law, the establishment of peace, and the reduction of conflicts in the world as the main tenets of his tenure as UN chief.
He said he had applied the same approach in dealing with the recent war of aggression against Iran, adding that in his belief, it was Israel that dragged the United States into war with Iran, and it had no goal other than weakening and destroying Iran, according to a readout of his remarks provided by the Iranian presidency.
Guterres said he was the only UN Secretary-General to condemn the attack on Iran in the Security Council and in the presence of the US representative, a stance that he said had brought with it many consequences and pressures for him.
