Iranian president-elect blasts US for fabricating crisis around Tehran’s nuclear program

The US and its allies have fabricated a crisis around Iran’s peaceful nuclear program, Iranian President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian said, Azernews reports.

"The US and its Western allies have abused the non-proliferation regime to fabricate a crisis regarding Iran's peaceful nuclear program - openly contradicting their own intelligence assessment - and use it to maintain sustained pressure on our people," Pezeshkian wrote in his message to the new world in Iran’s leading daily, The Tehran Times, on July 12. As the US pursues such a policy toward Tehran it continues to "support the nuclear weapons of Israel," he maintained.

"I wish to emphasize that Iran’s defense doctrine does not include nuclear weapons and urge the United States to learn from past miscalculations and adjust its policy accordingly. Decision-makers in Washington need to recognize that a policy that consists of pitting regional countries against each other has not succeeded and will not succeed in the future. They need to come to terms with this reality and avoid exacerbating current tensions," the Iranian president-elect added.

Pezeshkian, a reformist candidate, won Iran’s runoff presidential election on July 5, garnering 53.6% of the vote, while conservative Saeed Jalili received 44.3%. Pezeshkian is expected to take the oath of office on July 30.