Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday that the United States had waged terrorism against Iran, rejecting President Donald Trump's threat a day earlier to annihilate the Islamic Republic while insisting Tehran remains open to diplomacy that does not begin with surrender.
A rostrum answer to Trump's threat
Pezeshkian spoke one day after Trump used the same green-marble podium to warn he could destroy Iran if talks fail, language that drew a partial walkout from some delegations according to pool reports. The Iranian president said his country had been the victim of terrorism, not its author, and accused Washington of trying to bully Tehran into capitulation after nearly seven months of U.S.–Israeli strikes that began in February.
"We will never bow our head or bend at the knee," Pezeshkian said, according to a simultaneous translation carried by PBS NewsHour. He added that Iran was ready for dialogue "without accepting the language of force," a line analysts read as aimed at both Trump and hardliners in Tehran who argue any talks betray martyrs from the bombing campaign.
Who stayed in the hall
U.S. and Israeli officials declined to attend. Al Jazeera reported that a U.S. delegation representative walked out as Pezeshkian began, while Israel's mission boycotted entirely. European diplomats largely remained seated, photographing the speech for capitals that still buy Iranian crude through intermediaries and want any Hormuz reopening sequenced with nuclear inspections.
Foreign Policy noted Pezeshkian also devoted substantial time to Israel's war in Gaza, drawing parallels between bombardment of Iranian cities and the humanitarian crisis in the enclave. That linkage is standard Iranian rhetoric but landed differently this week because mediators were simultaneously shuttling between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on the same UN campus.
Diplomacy without concessions on the record
Pezeshkian's speech did not announce new military steps or sanctions relief. Instead it framed Iran as the party still seeking an off-ramp: he said Tehran extends its hands to the world even as Revolutionary Guard media aired footage of missile drills. Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera the address mixed defiance with an appetite for a diplomatic exit, a balance Pezeshkian must strike to keep both reformist voters and security institutions onboard.
Trump, speaking to reporters between meetings, said Iranian officials had held a productive three-hour session with his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Witkoff. He offered no details on blockaded ports or frozen assets, and Pezeshkian did not acknowledge those talks from the rostrum, preserving space for negotiators to work without either leader boxing them in publicly.
Energy markets watch the rhetoric gap
Traders treated the speech as theater unless followed by changes to U.S. Navy boarding rules or Iranian tug movements near Bandar Abbas. Brent crude had already eased on hints of renewed contact, and Pezeshkian's refusal to close the door on talks helped keep prices from spiking on his harshest lines.
For Asian refiners, the operative question is whether Wednesday's words become Friday's shipping notice. Insurance markets still price Hormuz transits as a war zone; a presidential tirade does not reopen lanes. Still, the new fact for the politics desk is institutional: Iran's elected president used the UN's highest-profile slot to call Washington a terrorist power while his diplomats met American envoys downstairs, a split screen that defines this General Assembly week.
