TEHRAN (Iran News) –President Ebrahim Raisi said ahead of his travel to New York to participate in the 77th United Nations General Assembly that a deal without guarantees was meaningless for Iran because of the United States broke its promises.
In an interview with CBS 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl on Sunday night, Raisi said: If it’s a good deal and fair deal, we would be serious about reaching an agreement. It needs to be lasting. There needs to be guarantees. If there were a guarantee, then the Americans could not withdraw from the deal.
Raisi said: You see, the Americans broke their promises. They did it unilaterally. They said that, “I am out of the deal.” Now making promises is becoming meaningless.
Asked about the peaceful uses of nuclear energy for Iran, the president said: Like in medicine, agriculture, oil, gas.
“We have responded to these claims several times. They are baseless. The Islamic Republic of Iran has said many times that possessing nuclear weapons has no place in our doctrine,” the Iranian president noted when asked by Stahl on the allegations that Iran has been working on nuclear weapons.
On the difference between the Trump administration and the Biden administration in Iran’s view, President Raisi said: The new administration in the U.S., they claim that they are different from the Trump administration. They have said it in their messages to us. But we haven’t witnessed any changes in reality. The sanctions are very tyrannical. This is a tyranny against the people of Iran. It is important to us to have the sanctions lifted.
When asked about American citizens detained in Iran, Raisi replied: There are Iranian nationals also imprisoned inside the U.S. These people are only in there because they simply tried to circumvent sanctions. And the Americans, we have told them that we can talk to them about this. It can be conducted separately from the nuclear talks. It can be done between the two countries. It is a humanitarian issue. This can be negotiated.
“No,” Raisi said about the possibility of a meeting between him and US President Joe Biden in New York, adding: I don’t think that such a meeting would happen. I don’t believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial.
“Do you believe the Holocaust happened,” Stahl asked the president and he answered: Look… Historical events should be investigated by researchers and historians. There are some signs that it happened. If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched.
“You see, the people of Palestine are the reality. This is the right of the people of Palestine who were forced to leave their houses and motherland. The Americans are supporting this false regime there to take root and to be established there,” Raisi noted.
On the assassination of the General Qassem Soleimani by the U.S. army, the Iranian president said: What the then American government did, by the direct order of Trump himself, to assassinate Mr. Qassem Soleimani, this was a heinous crime. We want justice to be served. We are not going to forget about this.
When asked if this “justice” meant an answer assassination, Raisi underlined: That’s the type of the actions that the Americans and Zionist regimes are doing in the world, we are not going to carry out the same actions.
Meanwhile on Monday and before departure for New York, President Raisi said he has no plans to meet with his American counterpart Joe Biden on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Raisi is to deliver a speech at the 77th session of the UN General Assembly later this week.
“There is no plan for talks or meetings with American rulers during the trip,” Raisi said, dismissing speculations, for the second time since last week, about a meeting with Biden.
The trip, however, will include separate meetings with leaders of some countries, according to the president.
Referring his scheduled speech, he said he would openly defend the rights of the Iranian people and highlight U.S.-led acts of oppression against them.
He expressed hope that the trip would be fruitful for “our country and system and the Muslim and oppressed nations of the world.”
