AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The United Nations secretary general is urging diplomats to help bring the Middle East back from the brink. That was one key message from an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting yesterday as diplomats debated the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: China's ambassador called it shocking that the U.S. and Israel began the strikes just as talks with Iran seemed to be making some progress. Russia's ambassador echoed that. And the U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned both the strikes on Iran and Iran's retaliatory strikes that violated the sovereignty of seven Gulf countries.
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ANTONIO GUTERRES: Military action carries the risk of igniting a chain of events that no one can control in the most volatile region of the world.
KELEMEN: He says he regrets that the opportunity of diplomacy was, as he put it, squandered.
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GUTERRES: The region and the world need a way out now. I call for de-escalation and an immediate cessation of hostilities.
KELEMEN: But U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz says the Trump administration's envoys were, in his words, relentlessly dedicated to diplomacy.
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MIKE WALTZ: But diplomacy cannot succeed where there is no genuine willingness to cease aggression, where there is no genuine partner for peace.
KELEMEN: Waltz went back through the history of threats from the Islamic republic of Iran, saying its proxies have, quote, "brought bloodshed and disorder across the Middle East for far too long." Iran's Ambassador Amir-Saeid Iravani accused the U.S. and Israel of launching a regime-change war in violation of the U.N. charter.
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AMIR-SAEID IRAVANI: What is occurring against my country is a clear act of aggression. It is an open-armed aggression against the Islamic republic of Iran.
KELEMEN: Waltz called that ridiculous. Israel's Ambassador Danny Danon rejected all criticism too.
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DANNY DANON: Some call this aggression. We call it necessity. We call it survival.
KELEMEN: For 47 years, Danon says, the Islamic republic chanted death to America and death to Israel. The U.S. and Israel are now encouraging Iranians to rise up.
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DANON: I think everyone see what's happening on the ground and understand that the time for the Iranian people to take control of the future is very soon.
KELEMEN: The Trump administration and Israel did not seek a U.N. mandate for their strikes against Iran, nor did they share any new information to justify their argument that they faced an urgent threat. The U.S. takes over the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council today.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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