
President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has used a speech to the UN General Assembly to hit back at Donald Trump over the US president's criticisms of his country and its 2015 nuclear deal.
In his debut speech to the UN on Tuesday, President Trump included Iran among a "small group of rogue regimes".
He described the nuclear deal as an "embarrassment" to the United States.
Mr Rouhani responded by referring to a "rogue newcomer to international politics".
He denied his country would be the first to violate the agreement but said Iran would "respond decisively and resolutely to its violation by any party".
It would be a "great pity", he added, if the agreement were to be destroyed by Mr Trump.
'Absurd and hateful'
"The ignorant, absurd and hateful rhetoric... was not only unfit to be heard at the United Nations which was established to promote peace and respect between nations, but indeed contradicted the demands of our nations from this world body to bring governments together to combat war and terror," Mr Rouhani told the assembly at UN headquarters in New York.
In 2015, Iran reached its landmark nuclear deal with world powers the US, UK, France, China and Russia plus Germany.
Crippling economic sanctions on Iran were lifted after the International Atomic Energy Agency certified Iran had restricted sensitive nuclear activities.
The White House said at the time the deal would prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Iran says it has the right to nuclear energy and insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.
Source: BBCNews
No comments:
Post a Comment
Add a Comment...