United Nations

      On September 26, President Hassan Rouhani called for ridding the world of nuclear weapons in his address to a U.N. disarmament conference. “Instead of nuclear weapons, let us invest in development and in eradicating poverty, ignorance, and diseases,” he suggested. Rouhani specifically called…
             Senior U.S. officials have welcomed signals indicating a conciliatory shift in Iran’s foreign policy. “What’s different about President [Hassan] Rouhani is not simply some matter of personality,” a senior administration official said in response to a question about Rouhani’s address to…
      More than a dozen members of Congress have issued statements indicating skepticism towards new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic overtures. In a joint statement, Republican senators John McCain (left), Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte supported the Obama administration’s…
            On September 24, President Hassan Rouhani delivered his debut address to the U.N. General Assembly. The following is the official translation of his speech.       In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds. Blessing and peace be…
           President Hassan Rouhani’s office released a flurry of more than 40 tweets during and immediately after his September 24 address to the U.N. General Assembly. The following tweets from @HassanRouhani appear in chronological order below.                                             
      President Barack Obama told the U.N. General Assembly that the diplomatic path to resolving the Iranian nuclear dispute must be tested. Obama acknowledged past statements opposing nuclear weapons by top Iranian leaders. And he suggested that a nuclear deal could “serve as a major step down a…
            Former President Mohammad Khatami has called on the international community to engage in dialogue with his successor to solve longstanding tensions and avoid even greater tension in the volatile Middle East that threatens “global catastrophe.” In an op-ed in The Guardian newspaper, the…
            In an all-time first for Iranian diplomacy, new Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has been chronicling his visit to New York on his Facebook page for Iranians back home. The following translations by USIP's Maral Noori are Zarif's accounts of meetings at the United Nations. Excerpts…
Shaul Bakhash             On September 24, Iran’s new President Hassan Rouhani will make his debut at the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). He is far from the first Iranian president to make this appearance. For a quarter century, Iran’s top elected leaders have all…
           The following are excerpts from speeches by top Iranian leaders from the U.N. General Assembly opening going back to 1987.   1987: President Ayatollah Ali Khamenei             “Today after some seven years of war it is quite clear to all that the invasion of Iran by the Iraqi army…