Iran’s incoming leader Ebrahim Raisi rules out Biden meeting but backs nuclear talks
- The Iranian president-elect said the US should immediately return to the nuclear deal and fulfil its obligations
- Raisi said his foreign policy priority would be improving ties with Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbours, and called on Saudi Arabia to halt its Yemen intervention
In his first news conference since he was elected on Friday, the hardline cleric said his foreign policy priority would be improving ties with Iran’s Gulf Arab neighbours, while calling on Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia to immediately halt its intervention in Yemen.
Raisi, 60, a strident critic of the West, will take over from pragmatist Hassan Rowhani on August 3 as Iran seeks to salvage the tattered nuclear deal and be rid of punishing US sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.
“We support the negotiations that guarantee our national interests … America should immediately return to the deal and fulfil its obligations under the deal,” he said.
Negotiations have been under way in Vienna since April to work out how Iran and the United States can both return to compliance with the nuclear pact, which Washington abandoned in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump before reimposing sanctions on Iran.
Iran has subsequently breached the deal’s limits on enrichment of uranium, designed to minimise the risk of it developing nuclear weapons potential. Tehran has long denied having any such ambition.