New York, Sept 23. (dpa/GNA) – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, hit back at US President Donald Trump’s threats to “annihilate” Iran in a fiery address to the United Nations on Wednesday, a day after the two countries quietly resumed talks for the first time in months.
“Yesterday, the United States President described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism,” Pezeshkian told the UN General Assembly in New York.
He condemned US attacks on civilian targets during the early stages of the Iran war, including a girls’ school and a sports complex in the south of the country.
“Our innocent people are in fact the target of cowardly attacks, and we defended ourselves with strength,” Pezeshkian said.
“America and Israel attacked us with the latest technology and equipment, and our people stood firm with strength,” he added.
The US delegate in the chamber walked out during Pezeshkian’s speech. Trump had launched a blistering attack on Iran in his own UN address on Tuesday, laying out two starkly different paths for Tehran, an agreement with Washington that could allow Iran to regain economic strength, or its destruction.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump said, describing one option as reaching an agreement with Iran. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
Pezeshkian said Trump’s threats would only strengthen Iran’s resolve. “He should know that threats against our nation make us more united, make us stronger and increase the resistance of Iranians,” he said.
Despite the escalating rhetoric, representatives of the United States and Iran held talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the first such negotiations in months.
Trump told reporters afterwards that the three-hour exchange had gone “very well.” Iranian state media confirmed that talks had taken place.
President Trump said, his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner took part. No concrete results were announced.
Witkoff said on X that the discussions had taken place through intermediaries, and expressed hope that they would prove constructive, adding that the mediators would continue their efforts.
Iranian state media stressed that the talks had taken place at Witkoff’s request. They reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, had communicated Tehran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including the immediate lifting of the US naval blockade off the Iranian coast, the release of all frozen Iranian assets and an end to the war on all fronts.
The New York Times, citing two Iranian officials, reported that Pakistan and Qatar had acted as mediators and had pushed intensively for a return to diplomacy.
Trump suggested that another round of talks could take place soon, but gave no details. The war had appeared increasingly deadlocked, with no US-Iran talks for some time.
In early July, representatives of the two countries held separate meetings with Qatari and Pakistani mediators in Doha as part of indirect negotiations.
Control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial route for global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments, remains one of the central disputes between Washington and Tehran.
Pezeshkian also insisted that Iran would not abandon its civilian nuclear programme and said, the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear activities could not be resolved militarily. “Iran’s nuclear issue will not be resolved on the battlefield,” he said. Pezeshkian again insisted that Iran was not seeking to develop nuclear weapons. “The solution is an agreement that gives the world credible assurance about the peaceful nature of Iran’s programme, and gives the Iranian nation assurance that its rights will be respected,” he said.
He also criticized what he described as intense scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear programme, while Israel possesses nuclear weapons.
“The atomic bomb is in Israel, but the inspections take place in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is sanctioned. And that is a tragedy that makes everyone who hears about it laugh,” Pezeshkian said.
The Iranian president used his address to warn more broadly against an international order, dominated by military power. “We must not create a world in which military power replaces legitimacy, sanctions replace diplomacy, terror replaces politics and war replaces dialogue,” Pezeshkian said.
“If international law is only implemented when it is compatible with the interests of the powerful, more countries will conclude that they must rely solely on their own power to ensure their security.” “Iran extends its hand to the world for cooperation. We are not calling on the world for another war, but for peace and justice,” he said.
“Either we create security together, or we will endure insecurity together.”
GNA