Pezeshkian addresses UN as Iran appears at world body during US war
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is set to make a rare appearance on the world stage on Wednesday when he addresses the UN General Assembly, in what is likely the first time a foreign leader will speak at the world body while his country is at war with the host nation.
Pezeshkian arrived in New York amid heavy security and scrutiny, a day after US President Donald Trump used the same to suggest he may “annihilate” Iran if a deal is not reached soon to end the nearly seven-month war. Within Iran’s political system, Pezeshkian is seen as a moderate politician.
Hours after Trump’s address, he told reporters that his chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, had met Iranian officials for about three hours on the sidelines of the annual gathering. He gave few details on how the discussions took place or what was discussed. “It was a very good meeting,” Trump said. He later added that the Iranian officials were “not the highest level, but it’s something.” On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump was open to meeting Pezeshkian while he is in New York.
Tehran, however, played down the unscheduled exchange, which was the first indirect contact between US and Iranian officials since a June ceasefire unravelled. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei repeated Tehran’s position in talks with Washington, saying the US must end its blockade of Iranian ports and release frozen Iranian assets. Baghaei said the talks, held indirectly through Qatari mediators, were “not anything new”.
Pezeshkian’s speech is expected to set out Tehran’s position after more than a year of stop-start negotiations between the two long-time rivals failed to produce a lasting solution. His address also comes as intermittent attacks continued in the Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s coast, where commercial shipping remained below pre-war levels.
In his address last year, delivered months after the 12-day Israel-Iran war that saw the killing of many of the Islamic Republic’s top military and political leaders and again derailed weeks of negotiations with the United States, Pezeshkian had said: “Ladies and gentlemen, you all bore witness that this past June, my country was subjected to a savage aggression and flagrant contravention of the most elementary principles of international law.” Overall, his speech on Wednesday is set to come at a tense moment, with war continuing, diplomacy moving in fits and starts, and both Washington and Tehran signalling sharply different positions.
