Iran’s Pezeshkian slams ‘terrorist’ US but extols diplomacy in UN speech

econews. In a defiant speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has delivered a sharp rebuke to a threat by US President Donald Trump from the same rostrum the previous day to annihilate the country, but left the door open for diplomacy to end nearly seven months of war.

“The US president called us terrorists but we are the victims of terrorists,” Pezeshkian said on Wednesday.

During his speech, Pezeshkian held up a picture of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike at the start of the war in February – as well as photos of schoolgirls killed in an alleged US air attack on their school in the southern city of Minab.

“They hit us, but we did not bow our heads or bend the knee,” Pezeshkian added.

As the Iranian president began his speech, an official from the US delegation walked out of the vast hall. The Israeli delegation also boycotted the address.

“[Trump] must know that the resistance of the Iranian people will only grow in the face of sanctions and increased pressure and bullying,” Pezeshkian said.

But Pezeshkian, a relative centrist in the Iranian ruling system, also left the door open for negotiations, saying, “Iran extends its hands towards the world.”

“We invite the world and call to it, not out of weakness, but out of a deep belief in our own power and steadfastness to cooperate and collaborate out of a deep understanding that no one in this region will have security alone,” he said.

‘Very good meeting’

On Tuesday, Trump said his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who are both leading negotiations with Tehran, had held a three-hour meeting with Iranian officials.

“They had a very good meeting, a very productive meeting,” Trump told reporters at the UN, adding that he believed there was “a lot of momentum” towards an agreement. Trump later said talks were continuing and that he believed a settlement would eventually be reached.

The remarks came after Trump used his speech before UN delegates to again threaten Iran’s destruction.

“Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before?” Trump said. “Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?”

Strait of Hormuz

Addressing the US naval blockade of Iran and Tehran’s campaign to choke off trade in the Strait of Hormuz, Pezeshkian said Iran would resist what he called US efforts to use the critical sea lane to expand its war on the country.

“In the Strait of Hormuz, we cannot have some free access and gain their independence from that waterway while at the same time use that waterway to impose their aggressions upon us and to impose insecurity upon us; to forbid us access to our own waterways,” he said.