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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a defiant speech to the United Nations on Wednesday blamed the U.S. and Israel for stoking global instability while accusing them of launching illegal attacks on his country's civilians and infrastructure. The address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York City was a fiery rebuke to President Donald Trump, who told the U.N. a day earlier that he was weighing whether to "annihilate" Iran after nearly seven months at war. It also contradicted Trump's insistent narrative that Iran desperately seeks a peace deal, and that one is likely to come right after the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Trump was not present at the U.N. on Wednesday; he returned to Washington overnight in advance of Chinese President Xi Jinping's arrival for a state visit. Pezeshkian, framing Iran as the victim of U.S. and Israeli aggression, asserted that his country will continue to fight back "until our last breath." "The United States president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism," Pezeshkian said, according to a live translation of his speech. "Are we the sources of instability? We only seek to live independently," Pezeshkian said. "We are the ones who cause instability? Those who are committing terrorism and committing crimes, are they the protectors of peace and stability?" Pezeshkian's appearance is historic: No other leader has ever addressed the U.N. in person while his or her country is actively at war with the U.S., The New York Times reported. Pezeshkian began his speech by holding up photos of children he said were killed by U.S. and Israeli bombs. A Tomahawk missile strike on a primary school in Minab in southern Iran on the first day of the war killed more than 150 people, including approximately 120 children, though different sources have provided varying tallies. A preliminary military investigation found that the U.S. is responsible for the strike, the Times reported in March, though the Pentagon has yet to share its official conclusions. The U.N.'s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran earlier this month said it found "reasonable grounds" to believe the U.S. committed a war crime by "launching indiscriminate attacks" that killed or injured civilians, including the strikes that hit the school. Trump, in Tuesday's speech, lashed out at the U.N.'s Human Rights Council as "craven hypocrites" for criticizing U.S. immigration and transgender policies while having "little to say about the persecution of Christians." Trump also said he has a "big decision to make" on whether to cut a deal with Iran or "annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly." "Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?" Trump wondered aloud. Later Tuesday, Trump told reporters that U.S. officials held a "very good" three-hour meeting with Iranian envoys on the sidelines of the U.N. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei later said that the meeting lasted "approximately two hours." Iranian officials laid out "clear and transparent" conditions for reviving diplomacy with the U.S. during those talks, Baghaei said in an X post. He said Tehran wants the U.S. to end its naval blockade in the Gulf of Oman and cease acts of "economic terrorism," apparently referencing the Trump administration's effort to pressure Iran by sanctioning its economic partners. Other conditions on Baghaei's list include releasing Iran's restricted assets and coming to an agreement on a "safe shipping route" in the Strait of Hormuz, which carried 20% of the world's oil before the war began. The list is likely a nonstarter for the U.S., which has repeatedly said its goal is ensuring Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains it is not seeking those weapons, but asserts its right to develop a nuclear program for peaceful purposes. "To defend our country, we do not seek anyone's permission," Pezeshkian said at the U.N. "We will not bow our heads and give up the right that is inherently ours. We say it clearly: No nuclear weapons and no limitations to new peaceful nuclear technology." Ahead of Pezeshkian's speech Wednesday morning, the Iranian military had brushed off Trump's latest threats as "a sign of strategic desperation," while countering that it is prepared to ramp up its own attacks.
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