Seoul Gazette - Macron tells Iran president only hours remain to avert nuclear sanctions

France, along with Britain and Germany, had set the clock ticking at the Security Council for the reimposition of wide-ranging UN sanctions that, without a deal, will kick in at the end of Saturday.

"An agreement remains possible. Only a few hours are left. It's up to Iran to respond to the legitimate issues we have raised," Macron wrote on X after meeting Pezeshkian at the United Nations.

Ahead of the meeting, Pezeshkian told the UN's annual signature gathering of world leaders that his country would never seek nuclear weapons.

"I hereby declare once more before this assembly that Iran has never sought and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb," he told the United Nations General Assembly.

"The one disturbing peace and stability in the region is Israel, but Iran is the one that gets punished," he said.

Iran has long contended that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, pointing to an edict by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and US intelligence has not concluded that the country has decided to build a nuclear weapon.

But Israel, the United States and European countries have long been skeptical due to the country's advanced nuclear work, believing it could quickly pursue a bomb if it so decided.

Britain, France and Germany have moved to reimpose UN sanctions that had been suspended under a 2015 nuclear deal that was negotiated by the United States and then torn up by US President Donald Trump.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Tuesday with his European counterparts, leading to no clear progress other than an agreement to keep talking.

Pezeshkian accused the Europeans of bad faith, saying that Iran's lack of cooperation was in response to Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

"They falsely presented themselves as parties of good standing to the agreement, and they disparaged Iran's sincere efforts as insufficient," Pezeshkian said.

"All of this was in pursuit of nothing less than the destruction of the very JCPOA which they themselves had once held as a foremost achievement."

Standing at the General Assembly rostrum, Pezeshkian showed pictures of people killed in the 12-day Israeli military campaign against Iran in June, which Tehran says killed more than 1,000 people.

The United States joined in the campaign on June 22, striking several of Iran's nuclear facilities.

"Aerial assaults of the Zionist regime and the United States of America against Iran's cities, homes and infrastructure at the very time we were treading the path of diplomatic negotiations constituted a grave betrayal of diplomacy," he said.

O.Kwon--SG