Iran will not negotiate with the United States over its ballistic missile or regional militia programs, its Conservative-elect Ebrahim Raisi said on Monday.
In his first press conference as President-elect, Raisi said he would not meet with President Biden and urged the United States to uphold a 2015 agreement that restricted Iran’s nuclear program in return for lifting economic sanctions.
“My serious recommendation to the US government is to immediately return to its obligations to lift all sanctions and show their goodwill,” he said in a briefing with national and international reporters in Tehran on Monday.
“Regional issues and missiles are non-negotiable,” he said, adding that the United States had failed to enforce the issues it “negotiated, agreed and committed to”.
The comments come as the US and Iran negotiate through mediators in Vienna to revive the 2015 agreement. Mr Biden has pledged to seek a return to the deal, which would lift around 1,600 sanctions against Iran after the Trump administration stepped out of the deal in 2018, calling it too weak.
Mr Raisi’s promise to refuse to negotiate missile and militia issues falling outside of the 2015 nuclear deal came as no surprise, analysts said, reiterating the positions he had taken as a candidate as well as those of the current administration.
“It was to be expected – he knows more about what he will not do than about concrete foreign policy plans,” says Hamidreza Azizi, visiting scholar at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “He just repeated the general positions of the Islamic Republic.”
When meeting with Mr Biden, the elected Iranian President had only one word answer: “No”.
What is striking is the determination with which Raisi declined the possibility of a meeting with the US president, said Azizi, attributing this to his lack of diplomatic background.
“The tone was not diplomatic and we will see that again during his presidency as he has no diplomatic experience,” he said.
Talal Atrissi, a sociologist at the Lebanese University in Beirut who studies Iran and its regional allies, said Raisi’s victory was a blow to reformists and would undermine Iran’s relations with its regional militias known as the “Axis of Resistance” , strengthen. These include Hezbollah in Lebanon, various militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are supported by Iran and who share their anti-Israel and anti-American stance.
“Raisi will remain committed to the Axis of Resistance,” said Atrissi, adding that Iran’s regional activities were never directed by the President, but by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“This relationship is not going to change at all,” he said. “On the contrary, there will be more cooperation.”
Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran had failed, Raisi said on Monday, according to the Iranian state-controlled broadcaster Press TV.
A negotiating team involved in the indirect talks in Vienna will continue those talks until his government takes its place, he said. He added that he supported discussions that safeguard Iran’s national interests, but “we will not allow talks for talks’ sake”.
This appeal also extended to European nations, said Raisi, “who must not allow themselves to be influenced by US pressure and must meet their obligations.”
Raisi, an ultra-conservative chief justice believed to be the potential successor to the country’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been charged with human rights abuses, including participating in a mass execution of opponents of the government in 1988. That record has earned him sanctions from the United States .
However, on Monday he called himself a “defender of human rights and the safety and comfort of the people,” adding that he would continue this role as president.
He also voiced a new idea: Iran is ready to reestablish diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia, which collapsed in 2016 after Iranians protested the kingdom’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric that stormed Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran.
That proposal, Azizi said, appeared to be part of Iran’s efforts to develop bilateral ties with other countries in the region independently of the United States, including American allies like Saudi Arabia.
Also over the weekend, the Iranian nuclear power plant in Bushehr was temporarily shut down, with officials calling it a “technical fault” and telling Iranians that the shutdown, which began on Saturday, would take a few days, according to the media.
Farnaz Fassihi contributed to the coverage.
