US must lift all unjust sanctions: Raisi

Tehran, June 22 (IANS) Iran's President-elect Ebrahim Raisi said that the US must lift "all unjust sanctions" on Tehran and abide by their commitments under the 2015 nuclear agreement."What I am saying to the US is that according to the nuclear deal, you were obliged to lift all sanctions and you did not. Go back and fulfil your commitments," Raisi said on Monday while addressing his first press conference as President-elect.Regarding the European partners in the nuclear agreement, Raisi said they should not succumb to the "pressures and foreign policies" of Washington but instead fulfil their commitments under the deal.Iran, he noted, will negotiate neither its regional policies nor its national defense with foreign parties.When asked whether he is ready to meet US President Joe Biden in case all American sanctions on Iran were cancelled and Tehran's demands were met, Raisi replied "no".Raisi, the incumbent Chief Justice of Iran, won the presidential election held on June 18 by a landslide. He won 61.95 per cent of the ballots on a voter turnout of 48.8 per cent, defeating the other candidates -- Mohsen Rezaei, Abdolnasswer Hemmati and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi.Seen as a hardliner by the West, he will assume office in August by replacing moderate outgoing President Hassan Rouhani, who was not allowed by the constitution to run for a third consecutive term.Raisi has become the first Iranian President to be sanctioned by the US even before assuming office as he was designated in 2019. The US blacklisted him for his role in the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 and his involvement in the crackdown on the 2009 Green Movement protests.
--IANS ksk/