UNITED NATIONS -- Iran’s president said Wednesday that his people have been “victims of terrorism” by the United States, delivering a rare wartime speech at UN General Assembly a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he may “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal isn’t reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war.
The defiant speech by President Masoud Pezeshkian marked a striking instance of a foreign leader addressing the world body while their country is at war with the host nation. While defending his country, Pezeshkian held up large photos of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the more than 150 school Iranian children killed on the first days of the war.
“We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” Pezeshkian said at the General Assembly. “Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country. And we defended ourselves with utmost strength. America and Israel attacked us.”
He added of the United States: “Yes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee.” Toward the end of his speech, Pezeshkian called out Trump by name.
“It must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force,” he said.
He also said one thing that was measurably false: “We did not hit civilian populations.” Mariners and migrant workers in the region have been among the civilians killed in Iran’s attacks since the war began.
A busy 24 hours for U.S.-Iran relations
Arriving in New York under heavy security and scrutiny, Pezeshkian -- who, within Iran’s political landscape, is considered a moderate politician -- addressed world leaders a day after Trump used the same stage to mull whether to massively escalate a war that has already spiralled out of control.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said in his wide-ranging address Tuesday. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before, maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”
Hours after those stunning threats, Trump told reporters that his chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met for about three hours with the Iranian officials on the sidelines of the annual gathering. But he offered few details about how the discussions transpired or the substance of the exchange.
“It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. The U.S. president later added that the Iranian officials were “not the highest level, but it’s something.” Also on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump is open to meeting with Pezeshkian while he’s in New York.
But Tehran downplayed Tuesday’s unscheduled exchange, which were the first indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials since a June ceasefire unravelled. Esmail Baghaei, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, maintained the country’s negotiating position in talks with U.S. officials, demanding that Washington end its blockade of Iranian ports and release frozen Iranian assets,
Baghaei said the talks -- conducted indirectly through Qatari mediators -- were “not anything new.”
More than a year of negotiations have taken place
Pezeshkian’s address elaborated on where Tehran stands as more than a year of start-stop negotiations between the two longtime adversaries have failed to produce a sustainable solution. His speech came as intermittent attacks continued in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast, where commercial shipping remained below prewar levels.
His address last year came months after the 12-day Israel-Iran war that saw the assassination of many of the Islamic Republic’s highest military and political leaders and once again broke down weeks of negotiations with the United States.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you all bore witness that this past June, my country was subjected to a savage aggression and flagrant contravention of the most elementary principles of international law,” Pezeshkian said at the time.
By Farnoush Amiri
