Iranian President-elect Ebrahim Raisi said that he will not meet with US President Joe Biden, calling his position “non-negotiable,” and is not willing to negotiate over his country’s ballistic missile program and its support of regional militias, during the first news conference since his victory in Friday’s election with 62% of the vote.
Raisi, who has been nicknamed the “Butcher of Tehran” for his alleged role in the executions of thousands of political prisoners in a 1988 mass execution, said that he has been a “defender of human rights” during his years of “service.”
Raisi said he would not continue negotiations toward resuming the 2015 nuclear deal unless they “guarantee the national interest,” and said that the US is “obliged” to lift the crippling sanctions reinstated in 2018 when the US under President Donald Trump left the nuclear agreement.