IRANIAN President Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday that Iran would not yield to US threats, sanctions or force, in his first address to the world body since the US and Israel launched their illegal war on the country.
‘I come from an Iran in which our esteemed supreme leader was assassinated without any legal framework or reason,’ he said.
‘I come from an Iran where, in truth, they bombed a school.’
He was referring to the US strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in Minab on 28 February, the first day of the war, which killed at least 156 people, among them 120 children and 26 teachers.
A member of the US delegation walked out as he began speaking.
Pezeshkian said Iran had defended itself ‘with utmost strength’ but ‘did not hit civilian populations’.
Its attackers, he said, had targeted ‘our universities, our healthcare centres, our schools, our hospitals, our infrastructures, all of it against international law’.
‘We say it clearly: in order to defend our country, we do not seek anyone’s permission or approval.’
He restated that Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, but will not surrender its right to peaceful nuclear technology.
He contrasted this with Israel, which holds nuclear weapons while inspectors are sent to Iran. ‘Israel has murdered savagely over 70,000 innocents in Gaza, but Iran, while behind the table of negotiation, was bombed,’ he said.
Palestine, he said, ‘remains an open wound on the conscience of the international community’.
‘If a human being is driven from his or her land, they will resist. If their homes are subjected to bombings and aggression and attacks, they will resist; what other choice do they have?’
He said US sanctions targeted ‘those who are ill, innocent people, the poor, the least privileged in our society’.
Turning to Trump, he said ‘the resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions, increased pressure, increased bullying’.
‘We will never bow our head, or bend the knee.’
Iran remained open to negotiation, he said, but would not accept ‘the language of force’.
The speech came a day after Trump asked the assembly: ‘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?’
All but one member of the Iranian delegation walked out.
Hours later, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff held indirect talks through Qatari mediators, their first since a June ceasefire collapsed.
Trump called the three-hour meeting ‘very productive’.
Tehran set out its conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. They are the lifting of the US naval blockade, the release of frozen Iranian assets and ‘an end to the war on all resistance fronts’.
