Iran's president-elect said on Monday that his government's priority would be improving ties with its neighbours in the Middle East, while calling on Saudi Arabia to immediately halt interfering in Yemen.
"Saudi Arabia and its allies should immediately stop their interference in Yemen," Ebrahim Raisi said in a televised news conference.
He added: "Iran wants interaction with the world ... my government's priority will be improving ties with our neighbours in the region."
In his maiden address after winning the elections,Ebrahim Raisi explained his links with the mass execution of political prisoners in 1988 when he was deputy prosecutor of Tehran.
Rights groups maintain that, shortly after the eight-year Iran-Iraq war ended, Raisi was one of the members of a so-called “death commission” that ordered the disappearance and execution of thousands of prisoners.Many were reportedly members of the Mujaheddin-e-Khalq (MEK), an organisation pushing for regime change that is now based in Europe, which at the time led a military assault on Iranian soil despite the fact a United Nations-brokered ceasefire had taken hold.
Asked by Al Jazeera’s Assed Baig about the executions at a press conference on Monday, Raisi did not directly confirm or deny the allegations.
“Everything I’ve done in my time of holding office has been to defend human rights,” the hardline Muslim scholar said.
He added that he has dealt with “those who disrupted people’s rights and engaged in Daeshi and anti-security moves” in reference to the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.“If a legal expert, a judge or a prosecutor has defended the rights of people and the security of the society, he must be lauded and encouraged for preserving the security of people against assaults and threats.”
Moreover, he said, as a prosecutor and in other capacities, he is “proud” that he always defended human rights, and promised he will continue to do so as president.
Amnesty International earlier this week renewed its call for Raisi to be put on trial for “crimes against humanity”.
Raisi is the first Iranian president to be subject to United States sanctions after the US designated him in 2019 for his role in the executions, in cracking down on public protests, and for ordering the hanging of individuals who were minors at the time they committed crimes.
He went on to say that he and Iran could now call out human rights violations by other countries – not the other way around – and called for “those that founded terrorist groups” to be prosecuted.