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 U.S. official said.
The 193-member U.N. 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 U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. The U.S. 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 May 19.
“The United Nations should be standing with the people of Iran, not memorializing their decades-long oppressor,” said the U.S. official. “Raisi was involved in numerous, horrific human rights abuses, including the extrajudicial killings of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.”
