Links in Jira Description do not render properly

[jumbo172]

I am using the jira needservice to extract jira tickets. The content of some of the tickets contain links to other jira tickets in the Description.

Here is a raw unformatted link, after getting it from jira:

print(datum["fields"]["description"])

[https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999|https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999|smart-link]

Here is the link after converting from Jira format to markdown and from markdown to rst:

description_text = md_convert(jira_convert(datum["fields"]["description"]))
print(description_text)

https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999<https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999|smart-link>_

However, the angle brackets are not escaped, so the rendered need look like this, and no longer functions as a clickable link:

https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999 <https://idexasa.atlassian.net/browse/REQGP-999|smart-link>_

Is there a way to get the external links to render properly within a need?