Immediate end to Israel attacks on Palestinians imperative: Iran president

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denounced Israel’s barbarism and massacre of the defenseless Palestinian people, urging Muslim countries and international organizations to bring an immediate halt to the Tel Aviv regime's atrocities.

“The Palestinian issue is still the most important and most vivid common issue for the Muslim Ummah and it is a necessity to counter these crimes and put an immediate end to the brutal attacks and the killing of the oppressed and defenseless [Palestinian] people,” Rouhani said in a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Sunday.

He added that Iran and Turkey, as two important and influential countries in the region, should improve cooperation and make collective efforts to utilize the capacity of international bodies such as the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to confront the Zionist regime's crimes and acts of aggression.

Iran rights body: Equivocal statements legitimize Israel's crimes, encourage their repetition

A senior Iranian human rights council says the UN ambiguous position on the massacre of Palestinians is tantamount to complicity in Israel

Tensions escalated in Jerusalem al-Quds, the occupied West Bank and Gaza amid the planned expulsion of dozens of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where illegal Israeli settlers are looking to take over the property of Palestinian families.

Addressing an OIC virtual emergency meeting on Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed Israel’s systematic human rights violations and disregard for international law as the regime’s relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip enters its seventh consecutive day.

Zarif: Systematic human rights violations taking place against Palestinians

Foreign Minister Zarif says the sole aim of Israel’s hypocritical gestures is to divide Muslims and isolate the people of Palestine.

Elsewhere in the phone conversation, President Rouhani said Iran has shown its goodwill and prepared the ground for the ongoing talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna to revive the multilateral nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“Today, the entire world, including the US which has imposed sanctions on Iran, has come to a conclusion that sanctions and the maximum pressure [policy against Iran] have failed,” the Iranian president said.

He emphasized that the lifting of sanctions, compliance with international regulations and the complete implementation of the JCPOA are the only solution to the existing differences between Iran and the P4+1 group of countries about the nuclear issue.

“Definitely, if the parties to this international agreement, particularly the US, have a serious will and good faith, the [Vienna] negotiations will lead to a positive and constructive outcome,” Rouhani said.

Under former President Donald Trump, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and initiated a “maximum pressure” policy against Iran, prompting Tehran to take remedial measures by gradually reducing its nuclear commitments under the deal.

Besides re-imposing the anti-Iran sanctions lifted by the JCPOA, the US targeted the Iranian nation with several sets of additional bans under new pretexts and labels.

Now, with Trump gone, the new US administration under President Joe Biden says it seeks to rejoin the deal, but it has so far refused to take meaningful action to regain Iran’s trust and come back to compliance.

In an excessive demand, the US says Iran should first resume the nuclear commitments it has suspended in resorting to its legal retaliation rights defined in Article 26 of the agreement before Washington lifts the sanctions.

Tehran has firmly rejected that demand, saying it is up to the US, as the party that abandoned the JCPOA, to take the first back toward the deal by removing all the anti-Iran sanctions practically and verifiably.

For his part, Erdogan said the international community must work to deter Israel and the Muslim world should also be united in discourse and action to that end.

The Turkish president expressed hope that participants at the OIC meeting would make a proper decision vis-à-vis Israel’s behavior.

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