Israel has described Iran’s newly-elected President, Ebrahim Raisi, as an “extremist” leader who is devoted to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“Iran’s new president, identified as the Butcher of Tehran, is an extremist responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranians. He is unwavering in the regime’s nuclear determinations and its drive for global terror,” said Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lior Haiat tweeted that the election of Raeisi shows Iran’s “true” intentions of becoming a nuclear power.
Raisi is an “extremist figure, staunch to Iran’s swiftly proceeding military nuclear program. His election makes Iran’s true destructive intentions very transparent, and should cause grave concern among the international community,” Haiat said, calling on the international community to “immediately” halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Elsewhere, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, while addressing his first televised cabinet session since taking office, defined Raisi’s rise to prominence as being prompted by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In reference to the JCPOA meetings, the new prime minister also stated that “a regime of brutal hangmen cannot be allowed to have weapons of mass destruction… Israel’s position will not change on this matter.”
Raisi, the ultra-conservative judiciary chief, gathered 17.92 million votes in Friday’s election, beating his three rivals in a landslide victory.
Voter turnout, according to the Interior Ministry, was 48.8%, the lowest in Iran’s history.
In 2018, former US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, in a move aimed at bringing Tehran back to dialogue for what Trump hoped would be a “better” deal.
Negotiations between Iran and Western powers on strengthening the pact have been ongoing in Vienna recently with all sides expecting to reconvene on Sunday for the sixth round of talks, according to a tweet shared by the Permanent Representative of Russia to International Organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov.
