President Rohani Denounces Aggressive Moves, Terrorism

New York, Sept 25, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rohani denounced aggressive moves and terrorism in his speech at the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in early hours of Wednesday. “Aggressive moves have been devastating almost nowhere in the world as grave as they have been in West of Asia and North of Africa,” he said. “Military intervention in Afghanistan, Saddam Husseins imposed war against Iran, occupation of Kuwait, military intervention against Iraq and aggressive and suppressive behavior against the people of Palestine, assassination of political personalities and ordinary people in Iran and bomb explosions in regional countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon are examples of the aggressive moves during the past three decades in this region,” the Iranian president noted. “The way the oppressed people of Palestine are being treated is nothing but systematic aggression. The territory of Palestine is occupied. The basic rights of the Palestinians are catastrophically breached and they are deprived of (the right to) return to their home, their birth place, and access to motherland. The criminal acts observed against the innocent people of Palestine is putting on display materialized aggression in describing which the word apartheid is too weak a world,” President Rohani added. Focusing on Syria, Rohani noted, “The human catastrophe in Syria is a painful sample of the catastrophic expansion of aggression and extremism in our region. Ever since the beginning of the crisis when some of the regional and international players began pouring weaponry and information and strengthening the extremist groups and militarizing that crisis, we emphasized that the Syrian crisis has no military solution.” He added, “It is not possible to pursue strategic and expansionist objectives and disturb regional balances and equations by hiding behind humanitarian words.” “ The shared objective of the international community must be to put an end to the massacre of the innocent people. While denouncing any kind of use of chemical weapons, we welcome Syrias acceptance of the chemical weapons ban convention and believe the extremist and terrorist groups access to these weapons is the greatest threat with which the region is faced and must be heeded,” said Rohani. “Meanwhile, illegal and incompetent resorting to threats, or use of force only leads to expansion of aggressions and crises in the region,” said the president. He said that terrorism and killing the innocent people is the peak of extremism and aggression. “Terrorism is a harsh nuisance that is all-encompassing and knows no borders. But meanwhile aggressions and extremism under the title of campaign against terrorism, including taking advantage of drones against innocent people, too, is condemned,” President Rohani said. The Iranian president said, “I have to speak about the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientists here by the criminals. What was their crime for which they were targeted by the terrorists? The question we must ask the United Nations and the Security Council is whether the terrorists were condemned?”/end