Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday condemned the 15-nation UN Security Council for its failure to resolve the Middle East conflict.
“The fire of war still rages in the Palestinian Gaza Strip and in Lebanese cities,” Pezeshkian told leaders of emerging economies at the BRICS summit in Russia.
“And the international institutions (…), first and foremost the United Nations Security Council, which are the engines of international peace and security, do not have the effectiveness necessary to put out the fire of this crisis.”
Pezeshkian condemned Israel for violating the “red lines” of different states and “producing a new wave of violence and terror.”
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Islamic Republic has criticized the UN body for its inactivity and ineffectiveness in ending the conflict in the Middle East.
Iran is engaged in an intense diplomatic campaign to establish a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.
These efforts also aim to prevent the conflict from spreading to the region after Israel threatened to retaliate for an Iranian attack on October 1.
Tehran said the attack was a response to Israeli strikes in Lebanon, which killed an Iranian general and leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Hassan Nasrallah, in late September.
Iran supports Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas, whose militant groups fight Israel.
“Conquer your goal”
For his part, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei took to social media to criticize the UN, calling it “a frustratingly dysfunctional platform.”
He said the UN was “unfortunately defeating its purpose” because the United States’ “unconditional support for the occupying regime” – Israel – “has so emboldened the regime that it has expanded its aggressions and atrocities across the region,” he said on social media platform X.
The United States is one of five permanent members of the Security Council with the power to block its decisions.
Earlier in October, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States of obstructing the Security Council over the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
“(The) inaction of the UN Security Council due to US obstruction (is) a disaster,” he said.
Iran does not recognize the State of Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause one of the pillars of its foreign policy since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The Security Council is made up of five permanent members with veto power – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – and 10 non-permanent members elected by the General Assembly to a two-year term.
Current non-permanent members are Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.