Speaking in the Non-Aligned Movement's (NAM) online meeting on Monday evening, President Rouhani said, “Global experience in combating COVID-19 has shown how a contagious disease can threaten all countries in the world, regardless of border, nationality or race, and endangers the health of every single person in the world.”
“This is a serious warning to all countries that human beings are sufficiently exposed to major threats such as environmental degradation, global warming, and natural threats such as the coronavirus,” he added.
Rouhani went on to say, “It is time to put an end to pressure and threats, terrorism, pressure on nations in the form of economic terrorism and military threats. It’s better for countries to turn to bilateral, multilateral, and international cooperation to combat real and common threats.”
“With such a view, Iran has been cooperating with the World Health Organization since the early days of the outbreak of the virus in the world, and has prepared a purposeful national strategic plan to combat the virus and cooperate with other countries in accordance with the International Health Regulations (IHR),” Iranian President said.
“As a result of these taken measures, the Islamic Republic of Iran has so far succeeded in effectively preventing the spread of the virus in many cities and regions of the country, and the performance of Iran in combating and controlling the virus has been assessed in cases beyond international standards,” Rouhani added.
The president also described the weakening of the World Health Organization (WHO) as a weakening of the global joint struggle against coronavirus, saying, “The US government's unjustifiable, hasty and irresponsible move to cut WHO funding should be considered as another strategic mistake.”
“For years, the United States has imposed unilateral and illegal sanctions and deprived the Iranian people of access to their rights. The United States is also threatening multilateralism and international cooperation,” he noted
“With US anti-human rights measures, the provision of medical supplies for Iran has usually been long and sometimes impossible,” Rouhani said.
“Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that the US anti-human rights measures have posed challenges to Iran's purposeful plan to counter the spread of coronavirus,” he added.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran declares its readiness to cooperate with all countries in the world in order to achieve vaccination and definitive treatment of COVID-19 and welcomes any request for cooperation,” he stressed.
The virtual summit of the heads of state of the Non-Aligned Movement's (NAM) contact group began on Monday evening with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran taking part.
The meeting begins with a speech by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan as the President of the 18th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.
Following the virtual summit, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the 74th General Assembly of the United Nations, delivered a speech, followed by a video message from António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Representatives from 40 countries are attending the virtual meeting, which includes 19 presidents, a vice president, six Prime Ministers, a deputy prime minister, eight foreign ministers, and an interior minister.
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