US to boycott UN tribute to Iran leader Raisi

The United States will boycott a United Nations tribute on Thursday to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed earlier this month in a helicopter crash, a US official said.

The 193-member UN General Assembly traditionally meets to pay tribute to any world leader who was a sitting head of state at the time of their death. The tribute will feature speeches about Raisi.

“We won’t attend this event in any capacity,” a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. The US boycott has not previously been reported.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment.

Raisi, a hardliner who had been seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed when his helicopter came down in poor weather in mountains near the Azerbaijan border on 19 May.

“The United Nations should be standing with the people of Iran, not memorialising their decades-long oppressor,” said the US official. “Raisi was involved in numerous, horrific human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killings of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.”

“Some of the worst human rights abuses on record, especially against the women and girls of Iran, took place during his tenure,” the official said.

The UN Security Council stood at the beginning of an unrelated meeting for a moment of silence on 20 May to remember the victims of the helicopter crash. Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood reluctantly stood with his 14 counterparts.

The United States expressed its “official condolences” for Raisi’s death, the State Department said on 20 May. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby also said that day: “No question this was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration was strongly criticised by some Republican members of Congress for offering condolences to Iran.

Raisi, 63, was elected president in 2021 and in office ordered a tightening of morality laws, oversaw a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests and pushed hard in nuclear talks with world powers.