In remarks late on Wednesday Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said various aspects of UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Agenda, also known as the 2030 Agenda, must be explained to the Iranian nation, because “this is a very important issue.”

Speaking in a meeting with university professors and highly talented individuals, Ayatollah Khamenei said the 2030 Agenda was among UN’s upstream documents, which are aimed to impose an intellectual, cultural and practical system on the world.

Noting that UNESCO is just a tool to promote such documents, the Leader said, “There are hands behind the scenes of the United Nations, which formulate an intellectual and cultural and practical system for everything that world nations have [and insist] that nations must act upon them.”

“This is wrong and faulty. What right do these [international bodies] have to express opinions about countries and their traditions and beliefs [and tell them] that they must act in this way or that way,” the Leader said, according to Press TV.

Ayatollah Khamenei also noted that those who say such documents are not “binding” are simplistic, because every one of their provisions, which are not enforced, will be considered as a negative point for countries that have accepted them.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader touched upon the importance of the country’s independence, advising university professors to make the country’s youths appreciate its independence.

“They have not seen the time when whatever that America and Britain said was realized in this country. Therefore, they do not appreciate independence [of Iran], [and university] professors must make them understand this,” the Leader said.