UN Security Council: Theresa May defends Brexit vote at General Assembly as Trump chairs meeting
US President repeatedly attacks Iran for second time in two days
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has chairing a United Nations Security Council meeting - a first for the US president.
It means that most of the attention that would have been focused on events at the General Assembly - where UK Prime Minister Theresa May would later defend the Brexit vote - was instead focused on the UN's most powerful body, where the US currently holds the rotating presidency.
While the meeting of the council addressed the issue of nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Mr Trump himself used the platform to attack Iran and accuse China - but not Russia - of meddling in 2018 midterm elections.
On Tuesday, during an unabashedly "America First" speech, Mr Trump said Iranian leaders "sow chaos, death and destruction" and "spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond." His national security adviser, John Bolton, also warned that there would be "hell to pay" if Tehran crossed the US, its allies or their partners.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded by accusing the Mr Trump administration of violating the rules of international law and "state obligations" by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with the US and five other major powers.
Mr Rouhani did not to attend the Security Council meeting that. The council is populated by five permanent members -- the US, China, Russia, Britain and France -- and 10 other member states, who occupy a council seat for two-year terms. Iran is not among them.
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Mr Lavrov has criticised the UK, saying that Russia has offered to help investigate the nerve gas attack in Salisbury earlier this year, but that the UK government has refused.
The UK has found Russia to blame in its own investigation.
"If they do not want to cooperate, does this mean they have something to hide?" Mr Lavrov asked.
Ethiopian Minister of Foreign Affairs Workneh Gebeyehu is now up delivering remarks.
"Proliferation has become one of the most serious challenges of our time," Mr Gebeyehu said.
President Donald Trump has taken an absence from the panel, and his spot has been taken over by US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called the reimposition of US sanctions following Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal an act of "unprecdented vengence" at a side meeting at the UN General Assembly, the AP reports.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned that dismantling the Iran nuclear accord would "be counterproductive for the efforts underway now to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula".
Russia's foreign minister added that Russia is working with China and European partners on ways to preserve the Iran deal.
Russia's foreign minister added that Russia is working with China and European partners on ways to preserve the Iran deal.
Earlier, Bolivia's President Evo Morales, sharply criticised Donald Trump and accused the administration of meddling in Iran and Venezuela.
Mr Morales also charged that "the United States could not care less about human rights or justice", referencing family separations at the US-Mexico border.
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