Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian (L) shakes hands with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in New York on October 27, 2023.

Iran’s foreign minister has reiterated the Islamic Republic’s support for the oppressed Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli regime’s bestial crimes.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks, meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday in New York, to which the Iranian top diplomat has traveled to attend an extraordinary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the issue of Palestine.

The Islamic Republic has placed consistent support for the Palestinian people’s liberating struggle and resistance with the aim of complete realization of their human rights, among the substantive principles of its foreign policy, he told the UN chief.

Amir-Abdollahian repeated Tehran’s vehement condemnation of Tel Aviv’s ongoing genocide in the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, which the occupying regime has brought under a relentless war for the past three weeks.

The death toll in Gaza since the start of Israeli aggression has reached over 7,400 with more than 20,500 wounded.

Silence on the part of some countries as well as support by the United States has emboldened the occupying regime in its deadly attacks against civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, Amir-Abdollahian noted.

He called on the international community, especially the UN Security Council, to take prompt and decisive action and act upon their duty to support the Palestinian people’s resistance in the face of Israeli aggression.

Iran backs whatever political solution that would enable immediate cessation of the Israeli regime’s ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza, continuous transfer of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory, and prevention of Gazans’ forced displacement, the foreign minister said.

He warned that the persistence of the occupying regime’s war crimes against Gaza opens the door to every prospect of expansion of the extent of the underway war and the formation of new fronts against the Zionist regime across the region.

Amir-Abdollahian said the establishment of sustainable and just peace in the region would only be possible through the complete cessation of Palestine’s occupation, the return of Palestinian refugees to their homeland, the implementation of a referendum featuring all of Palestine’s original inhabitants, and eventually the formation of an independent Palestinian state with the holy city of al-Quds as its capital.

For his part, Guterres laid emphasis on Iran’s exceptional role in the region, urging the continuation of the Islamic Republic’s diplomatic efforts and constructive political endeavors.

The UN chief described the current humanitarian situation in Gaza as catastrophic, urging all sides to enable immediate cessation of the warfare and transfer of humanitarian aid to the coastal territory.

Guterres, meanwhile, stressed the world body’s insistence on political resolution of the standing situation.