Iran’s president warns Trump it will not ‘bend at the knee’
Masoud Pezeshkian spoke to the United Nations a day after the U.S. president said he might "annihilate" the Islamic Republic.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking at the United Nations on Wednesday, holds up a poster of children who died during the U.S.-Israeli bombing raids on Iran.Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Iran’s president said his country would not be cowed by American threats and accused the U.S. and Israel of terrorism in a defiant speech a day after President Donald Trump warned he may “annihilate” the Islamic Republic. . . We will never bow our head or bend at the knee.”
Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, reiterated Tehran’s long-standing position that it doesn’t want nuclear weapons but has a right to a civilian nuclear program. It is a claim that Trump has said he does not believe and which fueled the U.S.-Israeli decision to launch a war against Iran seven months ago.
Trump, Pezeshkian warned, “must know that 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 at the knee.”