Belligerent sanctions causing human suffering, says Rouhani

On Syria, he warns about the arming of terrorists. Terrorism “is a violent force that knows no country or national borders.”

He castigates the use of drones, even in the name of confronting terrorism.

And he slams the “criminal assassination” of Iranian nuclear scientists, who he says have committed no crime. “Have the perpetrators been condemned?” he asks.

He now attacks sanctions that violate human rights — “above all the right to life.”

Sanctions cause “belligerence, war-mongering and human suffering.”

“It is the common people who are victimized by these sanctions,” he insists.

Violence and extremism have damaged international morality. “Intolerance is the predicament of our time.” We need to promote tolerance, he says.

Human society should be elevated from “mere tolerance” to collaboration. People worldwide “hope for a change in the status quo.”

Iran “believes that all challenges can be managed successfully” through moderation. People worldwide want to confront violence and extremism, he says.