While in New York, Masoud Pezeshkian faced backlash from hardliners at home following a Bloomberg report that claimed he suggested Iran was prepared to ease tensions with Israel.
The report entitled “Iran’s President Says He’s Prepared to Ease Tensions With Israel” was released after Pezeshkian met with a US media delegation in New York on Monday.
“We are prepared to give up all our weapons, provided Israel also disarms, and an international organization steps in to ensure security in the region. We don’t even need them—we know how to secure our own safety,” Pezeshkian is heard saying in an audio file from the meeting obtained by Iran International.
Some hardliners have even called for Pezeshkian’s impeachment, signaling potentially serious domestic political strife. It remains unclear where Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stands. While Pezeshkian’s foreign policy statements were likely approved by Khamenei, it remains to be seen whether he will step in to rein in the hardliners.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and the head of the government’s Public Relations Council, Elias Hazrati, strongly rejected Bloomberg’s claim, but an audio recording of the meeting obtained by Iran International confirmed the the Iranian president made those remarks.
Pezeshkian said on X Tuesday that he had criticized the “UN inaction against the crimes of the occupying regime” in a meeting with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“The silence of the world, especially the Western countries, about the death of 41,000 innocent people in Gaza is incomprehensible. The Islamic world will not allow them to turn Lebanon into another Gaza,” he added in his tweet.
“A more beautiful world! President Pezeshkian talked about a region free from weapons of mass destruction and a world free from nuclear weapons,” the Pezeshkian administration’s X account posted Tuesday.
The harshest criticism has come from ultra-hardliners within the Paydari Party and its allies, who continue to quote the Bloomberg headline despite “corrections” from Araghchi and others. They accuse Pezeshkian of betraying Hezbollah, Hamas, Yemen, and other Iranian allies in the region.
“The least that should be done after this scandal in the US is to impeach such an incompetent person and remove him from the presidency of Iran!” one of the critics outraged by the alleged suggestion of the possibility of escalation with Israel posted on X.
“It seems that the multilateral diplomacy of Javad Zarif and President Pezeshkian will be damaging to the Resistance Axis. The message of peace from Iran as the main supporter of the Resistance Axis when Lebanon is on fire has boldened the Israeli army,” another critic charged.
Mohammad-Javad Zarif, Pezeshkian’s Vice President for Strategic Affairs, also took to X to defend Pezeshkian for “the most well-founded defense of the resistance of the people of Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen” in New York, “exposing the dual standards of the Western countries in matters such as weaponization, war, and human rights” and “showing that genocidal Israel is an aggressor with nuclear weapons”.
Opponents of the Islamic Republic, however, are criticizing Pezeshkian’s government for its support of militant groups within the Axis of Resistance, rather than for any alleged attempts at de-escalation in the region.
“Is Mr. Pezeshkian the President of Lebanon, Yemen, and Palestine … that he is talking on their behalf? Is it an honor to put Iran’s money and wealth in the mouths of terrorists?” one of the replies to Zarif’s post in Pezeshkian’s defense charged.
“Why did Lebanon and Yemen get themselves involved in this as if Israel occupied their lands? It was you who armed them. Otherwise, why should Lebanon and Yemen get involved in a Palestinian war?” another comment to Zarif’s post read.
“You and the criminal regime under the criminal Khamenei’s command send money and weapons to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah instead of supporting your own people … You’d better pay heed to human rights violations in Iran instead of theatrical human rights performances in New York…,” another X post declared.
Since his arrival in New York, Pezeshkian has held meetings with the UN Secretary-General, the President of the European Council, the King of Jordan, and presidents of Switzerland, Turkey, and Finland, the Elders Group, and some US media representatives.
Pezeshkian also sat for an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in which he warned about the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and an all-out war in the region.
In his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly, he stated that Iran is willing to return to the now-defunct JCPOA nuclear agreement, provided the West meets its obligations, which would effectively mean the lifting of sanctions.