Raisi rules out meeting with Biden in the sidelines of UNGA session

In the about-to-be broadcasted interview done on Tuesday on CBS News' 60 Minutes program, Iran's Ebrahim Raisi was asked whether he was open to a meeting vis-à-vis US President Joe Biden, to which he replied, "I do not think that such a meeting is going to take place," adding, "I don't believe having a meeting or a talk with him will be beneficial."

This matter was stressed by Raisi recently as well during his speech to reporters as he announced that he will not meet with his US counterpart Joe Biden because such a meeting "is not in the interest of the Iranian people."

During the interview that will be aired on Sunday, among the questions asked was his opinion on whether he noticed differences between the Biden administration and that of former President Donald Trump, to which he replied, "The new administration in the US, they claim that they are different from the Trump administration," stressing that although "they have said it in their messages to us.... we haven't witnessed any changes in reality."

It is worth recalling that the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers back in May 2018 under Trump's presidential term, after which he revived sanctions on Iran as part of the “maximum pressure” campaign he launched against the country and which Biden continues to impose. His administration, however, has repeatedly admitted that the policy has been a mistake and a failure.

At the beginning of his presidential campaign, Biden voiced his intentions to bring the US back into the deal but there has been no sign of that, and the US has even imposed more sanctions on Iran, such as the latest concerning Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security and its Minister Esmail Khatib, after the US accused Tehran of being behind a cyberattack against NATO ally Albania, which Iran denied.