Iran’s president tells Trump it will never ‘bend the knee’

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has told the UN General Assembly that it will never “bend the knee” after almost seven months of war with the US and Israel, but is ready for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.

Responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal is not reached soon, Pezeshkian said: “He must know that the resistance of the Iranian people will only increase in the face of sanctions, increased pressure, increased bullying.”

He also insisted any deal would have to include an end to the US blockade of Iranian ships and ports.

“It cannot be the case that everyone benefits from the Strait of Hormuz while we are denied access,” he said.

The Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and gas shipments usually pass, has effectively been closed since the start of the war in late February due to Iranian missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels and the US blockade.

The US and Iran reached a preliminary agreement to end the war and reopen the strait in June, but it collapsed within weeks after the Iranian attacks on shipping resumed and the US reinstated its blockade.

On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff held indirect talks brokered by Qatari mediators on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Witkoff said he hoped the discussions – the first since June – would “prove constructive and promising”, adding that the mediators would continue their work.

But Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqai said the talks were “not anything new” and that Araghchi had maintained Iran’s conditions, including the end of the US blockade and the release of frozen Iranian assets.