Araghchi tells Guterres: Iran will never drop its demand for justice over U.S. and Israeli ‘war crimes’

Iran will never give up its demand for justice, accountability and punishment of the “orchestrators and perpetrators of war crimes by the U.S. and the Zionist regime” — that was the message Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi conveyed on Monday to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres during their meeting in New York, as Al Jazeera reports.

According to reporting by the Iranian agency Tasnim, cited by Al Jazeera, Guterres called on Tehran and Washington to continue diplomatic efforts to end the conflict and achieve peace. But Araghchi replied that the U.S. has “betrayed diplomacy many times over the past decade”.

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where Iran’s top diplomat said his visit was aimed mainly at presenting Tehran’s position on regional conflicts and the critical security situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, as Al Jazeera notes in its live coverage of the war, U.S. and Iranian officials held separate talks on Monday with Qatari mediators in New York, in a fresh attempt to end the seven-month war, while any new development on a seven-day plan to reopen Hormuz is expected to emerge from these contacts.