SHAFAQNA- President Hassan Rouhani attends the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) annual meetings. He is likely to focus much of his time at the U.N. General Assembly this week with one main goal in mind: defending the controversial agreement.
The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 73) is opened on 18 September 2018. The first day of the high-level General Debate will be Tuesday, 25 September 2018, and is scheduled to last for nine working days. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, President-elect of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), announced in July 2018 that the theme of the general debate will be “Making the United Nations Relevant to All People: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies”, sdg reported.
According to Irna, President Hassan Rouhani left Tehran for New York on Sunday morning to attend the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) annual meetings. This is Rouhani’s fifth U.N. General Assembly meeting.
What is Iran looking for in U.N. General Assembly meeting?
Trump has frequently called the 2015 nuclear deal “the worst deal ever,” and has threatened to rip it up.
Rouhani, who began his second term as president in May, was largely responsible for spearheading negotiations in 2015 with the United States and other world powers that led Iran to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions.
With President Trump’s disdain for the 2015 agreement on limiting Iran’s nuclear program threatening the pact’s survival, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is likely to focus much of his time at the U.N. General Assembly this week with one main goal in mind: defending the controversial agreement.
As tensions between the United States and Iran increasing over this, Rouhani is likely to spend much of his time defending the deal to other world leaders and attempting to show that Iran is abiding by it, LAtimes told.
Already Rouhani has set off on this course. In an interview with CNN on Monday, Rouhani warned that “exiting such an agreement would carry a high cost for the United States of America.” He also said he does not believe that “Americans would be willing to pay such a high cost for something that will be useless for them.”
Rouhani told reporters Sunday as he arrived in New York that “the goal of this visit is to…deliver Iran’s voice to the world,” adding later that his strategy is “to have inclusive interaction with the world”.
US will focus on Iran
With US midterm elections looming and the ongoing economic, cyber and political skirmishes with Russia, China and Iran, Mr Trump is expected to use the UN meeting as a platform to amplify his views, as he has done before.
On Tuesday Trump will deliver his second speech to the General Assembly, where Ms Haley said the president will be “talking about foreign policy successes the United States has had over the past year and where we’re going to go from here.” Emphasizing sovereignty and building relations that share US values will be some of the speech highlights, explained the US ambassador.
On Wednesday the US president will chair a United Nations Security Council Briefing on nuclear non-proliferation, which will focus on Iran. But Ms Haley and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said it will also discuss North Korea, chemical weapons in Syria and counter proliferation cooperation, The National reported.
When it comes to policy breakthroughs, experts who spoke to The National were doubtful that much would be accomplished at UNGA73.
Iran is clearly on the US president’s mind as he heads into the week, tweeting Friday that he would chair a special U.N. Security Council meeting about the country, even though the administration says it will actually be broadly focused on nonproliferation. A draft concept note for the meeting obtained by ABC News makes no direct mention of Iran, saying the meeting instead will be about how “to counter the spread and use of the world’s most dangerous weapons”, Sandhills Express told.
Trump willing to meet Iranian leader, says Pompeo
President Donald Trump is willing to meet Iran’s Hassan Rouhani when world leaders gather at the United Nations this week, said the top US diplomat.
“He’s happy to talk with folks at any time,” US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a pre-recorded interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. “The president’s been pretty clear about that”, Gulf News reported.