Iran\u2019s president said Wednesday that his people have been \u201cvictims of terrorism\u201d by the United States, delivering a rare wartime speech at U.N. General Assembly a day after President Donald Trump said he may \u201cannihilate\u201d the Islamic Republic if a deal isn\u2019t reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,\u201d Pezeshkian said at the General Assembly. \u201cOur 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added of the United States: \u201cYes they did hit us, but we did not bend the knee.\u201d Toward the end of his speech, Pezeshkian called out Trump by name.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also said one thing that was measurably false: \u201cWe did not hit civilian populations.\u201d Mariners and migrant workers in the region have been among the civilians killed in Iran\u2019s attacks since the war began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a big decision to make,\u201d Trump said in his wide-ranging address Tuesday. \u201cWill 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very good meeting,\u201d Trump said. The president later added that the Iranian officials were \u201cnot the highest level, but it\u2019s something.\u201d Also on Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump is open to meeting with Pezeshkian while he\u2019s in New York.<\/p>\n
But Tehran downplayed Tuesday\u2019s unscheduled exchange, which were the first indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials since a June ceasefire unraveled. Esmail Baghaei, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, maintained the country\u2019s negotiating position in talks with U.S. officials, demanding that Washington end its blockade of Iranian ports and release frozen Iranian assets,<\/p>\n
Baghaei said the talks \u2014 conducted indirectly through Qatari mediators \u2014 were \u201cnot anything new.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pezeshkian\u2019s 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\u2019s coast, where commercial shipping remained below prewar levels.<\/p>\n
His address last year came months after the 12-day Israel-Iran war that saw the assassination of many of the Islamic Republic\u2019s highest military and political leaders and once again broke down weeks of negotiations with the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cLadies 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,\u201d Pezeshkian said at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s president said Wednesday that his people have been \u201cvictims of terrorism\u201d by the United States, delivering a rare wartime speech at U.N. General Assembly a day after President Donald Trump said he may \u201cannihilate\u201d the Islamic Republic if a deal isn\u2019t 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27372,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27371\/revisions\/27372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/USBnews24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}