Iran

Iran President Rouhani to attend UN General Assembly session

Iran President Rouhani

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani is scheduled to take part in the 68th session of the United Nations’ General Assembly, says Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif said on Wednesday that the Iranian president will travel to the US city of New York to attend the event in September.

Rouhani was elected Iran’s president by securing an outright win in a national election on June 14, marked by a turnout of more than 72 percent. He was sworn into office on August 4, a day after being endorsed by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

Commenting on a draft resolution in the US Congress to authorize a military attack against Syria, the Iranian foreign minister said the US cannot decide on the matter on its own.

“This is not a decision that the US Congress can legally make for the international community,” Zarif said.

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday drafted a bipartisan measure, to be voted on later, imposing a 90-day deadline for US military intervention and banning the “deployment of any US troops on the ground” in Syria.

The rhetoric of war against Syria first gained momentum on August 21, when the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed that hundreds of people had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds near Damascus.

Damascus categorically rejected having had any role in the gas attack.

Nevertheless, a number of Western countries, including the US, France, and the UK, quickly started campaigning for war.

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