President Raisi Heading to NY for UN Meeting

President Ebrahim Raisi met with Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Sunday, ahead of his first visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York to attend the annual General Assembly. 
He also presented a report on his meetings and agreements during a recent trip to the Uzbek city of Samarkand where he took part in the 22nd Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Leader.ir reported. 
The Leader expressed satisfaction with the president’s measures in Uzbekistan and wished him success before his departure for New York on Monday. 
Raisi is attending the UN General Assembly for the first time in person. He addressed the event via video conference last year and the Iranian delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. 
The 77th UNGA opened on September 13 in New York, and the high-level General Debate is scheduled to take place from September 20 to 26.
In addition to delivering a speech at the annual gathering, Raisi is slated to sit with a number of leaders from participating countries and hold other meetings on the sidelines of the UN summit. 
The Iranian delegation’s main agenda is to secure the interests of the Iranian nation and work toward realizing a “just international order via economic multilateralism.”
Raisi pursued the same goal during his visit to Samarkand and participation in the SCO summit. 
Along this line, he met with leaders from attending countries, including Russia, China and India, and signed a number of agreements for cooperation, as well as Iran’s memorandum of commitments for full membership in the SCO which is expected to become fully effective in April 2023.

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Raisi’s administration has been seeking to diversify Iran’s foreign relations, with priority given to regional and neighboring countries, in a bid to immunize the country’s economy against sanctions. 
The Islamic Republic has come under western sanctions on various grounds throughout its history, including the recent sweeping restrictions reimposed by the United States following its unilateral exit from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The Iranian government is currently engaged in negotiations to revive the agreement and have the bans removed, while pursuing plans to neutralize the sanctions, according to officials in Tehran. 
Iran and the US are currently responding to an initiative put forward by the European Union coordinator, but the latest comments have not been promising. 
Tehran demands strong guarantees for the lifting of sanctions and US adherence to the JCPOA as well as the closure of its safeguards issue at the International Atomic Energy Agency. 
Iranian officials say western countries’ refusal to entertain these legitimate demands have caused the stalemate in talks that have been underway since April 2021 in the Austrian capital Vienna. 
Asked by CBS News whether or not he would meet with US President Joe Boden during his New York visit, Raisi said he did not think such a meeting would happen.
“I don’t believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial,” he said. 
He added that the Biden administration is no different from former president Donald Trump’s government who abandoned the deal, despite its claims. 
“They claim that they are different from the Trump administration … But we haven’t witnessed any changes in reality.”