US-Israeli attacks only strengthened Iranian unity, Pezeshkian says

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday blasted a move by Germany, Britain and France to trigger the "snapback" of international sanctions on Iran last month which is due to take effect in days.

"Three European states - having failed through a decade of bad faith and thereafter by supporting military aggression to bring the proud people of Iran to their knees - at the behest of the United States of America sought by means of pressure, coercion, imposition and manifest abuse to reinstate against the Iran Security Council resolutions that had already been terminated," he said.

"In doing so, they set aside good faith. They circumvented legal obligations," he added, calling the European move a "gross violation."

"The world ... was witness to these surreptitious raids, infringement upon the sovereignty of nations, violation of the territorial integrity of states ... all of this under the full support of the most heavily armed regime in the face of the earth," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a speech to the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

"Who is the disturber of the stability of the region and the world? Who is the actual threat against international peace and security?" he added, according to a simultaneous translation.

"(Iran) was subjected to a savage aggression and flagrant contravention of the most elementary law."

Iranian lawmakers on Wednesday downplayed US restrictions on President Masoud Pezeshkian’s delegation in New York, with one calling them “a joke” and another saying they exposed President Donald Trump’s weakness.

Hassanali Akhlaghi Amiri, a lawmaker from Mashhad, said Iranian officials “have no need to buy goods from America” and described the measures as laughable.

Javad Hosseini-Kia, deputy head of parliament’s industry committee, said the restriction underscored Trump’s “weakness against Iran” and said Tehran would use forums like the UN General Assembly to push for greater unity among Muslim nations, including ideas for a shared “Islamic NATO and currency.”

Russia and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday to build small nuclear power plants in Iran, Russian state nuclear firm Rosatom said, deepening cooperation as Western powers move to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

The agreement, described by Rosatom as a “strategic project,” was signed in Moscow by Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachev and Iran’s atomic energy chief Mohammad Eslami, who is also a vice president.

Eslami said earlier this week the plan envisions eight reactors as part of Tehran’s goal to expand nuclear capacity to 20 gigawatts by 2040. Four are slated for Bushehr, where Russia built Iran’s only operating reactor, with a capacity of about 1 GW.

Iran faces recurring electricity shortages.

Iran’s government has drawn up “the most pessimistic scenarios” to prepare for the activation of the United Nations snapback sanctions mechanism, government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Wednesday.

“The government is optimistic, but we have designed the most pessimistic scenarios for this issue,” Mohajerani told reporters.

She added that while Tehran would not forgo diplomatic opportunities, “if they want to act with bullying, that is not dialogue.”