A day after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to “annihilate” Iran if an agreement is not reached, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that Tehran was “ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations” but “We will never bow our head or bend at the knee.”
Pezeshkian made his comments as both sides sought to revive stalled negotiations to end the current war. The two sides spoke through intermediaries, but neither reported any breakthrough.
The White House said Trump was working to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon in a way to “make the world safer and more stable.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told MBN that the Iranian regime had “killed thousands of its own people, killed Americans abroad, carried out terrorist acts in the Strait of Hormuz and launched indiscriminate attacks against its neighbors in the region.”
In his speech, Pezeshkian appeared to signal Iran’s readiness to negotiate but stressed that it would not accept conditions imposed by force. The U.S. delegation left the General Assembly hall as he began speaking.
little interest in bringing the conflict to a swift end.
The speech followed indirect negotiations between Iranian and U.S. officials in New York. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran was considering the U.S. response to its proposal and that reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the U.S. naval blockade were among the issues discussed.
“We cannot let some have free access and gain their interests from a waterway while at the same time using that waterway to impose their aggressions upon us,” Pezeshkian said in his speech. “We will not succumb to that.”
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the main points of contention between the two countries. Before the war, roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies passed through the strategic waterway. Howard Eissenstat, a professor of history at St. Lawrence University, said Pezeshkian’s comments Iran’s belief that it now possesses an important source of leverage, which could make a diplomatic solution more difficult to achieve.
Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program is the other main reason cited by the U.S. for the continued hostilities.
But Pezeshkian reaffirmed Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear power and said it was “not seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
“For our country, peaceful nuclear technology is part of our inherent progress,” he said, adding: “We will not bow our head and give up the right that is inherently ours. We say it clearly: no nuclear weapons, and no limitations to peaceful nuclear technology.”
Eissenstat described the statement as part of Iran’s familiar rhetoric, saying Tehran sought to retain capabilities that would leave it on the threshold of possessing a nuclear weapon.
Trump said Tuesday that there was “a lot of momentum” toward a deal, while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said reaching one would require “hard work,” noting that Trump still had military options if negotiations fail.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
