Iran’s president laid out Tehran’s demands to the world, from a podium in New York

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Seven months after the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran , the Iranian president stood on a podium in New York to tell President Donald Trump that the Islamic Republic “will not bow down.”

As his country confronts its gravest existential war, and amid Trump’s threats of “annihilation” and mounting economic strain at home, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian told world leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly that Iran will not yield on its nuclear program, missile defenses or control of the Strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil once flowed.

“We cannot let some have free access and gain their interest from a waterway while at the same time using that waterway to impose their aggressions upon us, to impose insecurity upon us, to forbid us access to our own waterways,” Pezeshkian said.

The Iranian president used the world stage to deliver Tehran’s demands and Iran’s core message to Trump, who has sought through war to defeat the Islamic Republic. Trump has boasted that the United States has “blown up” nuclear sites in Iran, claimed control over the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to “drive them into hell.”

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Pezeshkian’s address was among the most anticipated speeches at this year’s United Nations gathering, and delivering it on American soil was a rare historic moment: a foreign leader holding forth in an enemy country still at war with his own.

Despite Washington’s early forecasts that the fighting would be brief, the US-Israeli war on Iran has instead dragged on, turning a military operation that began with the killing of the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, into months of regional instability and one of the defining foreign policy legacies of Trump’s presidency.

Ayatollah Khamenei, who battled the US and Israel for decades as Iran’s supreme leader, has been killed

One of Pezeshkian’s key messages offered a glimpse into how the Islamic Republic seeks to set its postwar regional stance, telling Iran’s neighbors that its future security must be guaranteed or the entire region will have to “live under insecurity together.”

The message carried an implicit threat, according to one expert.

“Iran was presenting regional security as indivisible, signaling that continued pressure and conflict would impose costs across the region,” Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at London’s Chatham House think tank, told CNN.

But the message also signals that Iran knows it will need to find a way to coexist with the rest of the region, according to another expert, Hamidreza Azizi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“This reflects an understanding that, at the end of the day, Iran will need to find an arrangement for peaceful coexistence with its neighbors,” Azizi said.

Pezeshkian delivered his speech at the UN a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held at least two hours of talks in New York with Trump’s peace envoy Steve Witkoff, the first sign of diplomacy between the two nations since an ill-fated agreement was signed more than three months ago.

Following Pezeshkian’s remarks, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said those talks did not yield any major breakthrough , indicating the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) from earlier this year was no longer on the cards.

A plan in June for further negotiations between Iran and the United States never came to fruition. The conflict flared instead, leaving the region sinking deeper into uncertainty over how the war would end. At home, Pezeshkian and the Iranian officials who engaged Washington diplomatically have faced scrutiny from rival hard-line factions, which regard any agreement with Trump as tantamount to surrender.

“The foreign minister must explain on which authorization was his meeting with the representative of the aggressor enemy conducted?” Ebrahim Rezaei, a hard-line lawmaker, asked Wednesday after Araghchi met Witkoff.

Pezeshkian has also drawn criticism from hard-liners for attending the meeting in New York.

“His critics expressed concern that if … he signaled any intention to compromise to the outside world, this would be interpreted as a sign of weakness and desperation and would therefore be counterproductive for Iran, which wants to end the war on its own terms,” Azizi of the Crisis Group said.

As Pezeshkian and Araghchi delivered Iran’s demands to the world and a message of coexistence to the region, security officials back home announced a more hard-line position in Iran’s negotiating tactics.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council chief, Mohsen Rezaei, told state media in an interview broadcast around the same time as Pezeshkian’s speech that the Islamic Republic will adopt a new framework when negotiating with the US that will require Washington to take the first step.

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“Under this new framework, the era of rhetoric and negotiations for their own sake has come to an end,” Rezaei said in the interview. “Any future talks, or the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, will be contingent upon Washington’s full implementation of Iran’s requirements as a precondition.”

His remarks perhaps not only sent a message to Washington but were also aimed at assuaging hard-liners skeptical of the Iranian officials negotiating in New York.

Yet as Iran conducted diplomacy at the UN and signaled future coexistence with the region, Oman’s Maritime Security Center said a ship was targeted near the Strait of Hormuz, killing one person.

“Vessels are advised to transit with caution,” the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) center said.

Timothy A. Clary/法新社/盖蒂图片社

在美国和以色列对伊朗发动战争七个月后，伊朗总统站在纽约的讲台上告诉美国总统唐纳德·特朗普，伊朗伊斯兰共和国“不会屈服”。

伊朗正面临最严峻的生存战争，同时还要面对特朗普的“毁灭”威胁和国内日益加剧的经济压力。伊朗总统马苏德·佩泽什基安在联合国大会上向各国领导人表示，伊朗不会在核计划、导弹防御或霍尔木兹海峡的控制权问题上做出让步。霍尔木兹海峡是重要的水道，曾经有五分之一的世界石油经由此海峡运输。

佩泽什基安说：“我们不能一方面允许某些人自由出入水道并从中获利，另一方面又利用这条水道对我们施加侵略，给我们带来不安全感，禁止我们进入自己的水道。”

伊朗总统利用国际舞台向特朗普传达了德黑兰的要求和伊朗的核心信息。特朗普一直试图通过战争击败伊朗伊斯兰共和国。他曾吹嘘美国“炸毁”了伊朗的核设施，声称控制了霍尔木兹海峡，并威胁要“把他们送入地狱”。

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佩泽什基安的讲话是今年联合国大会上最受期待的演讲之一，而他选择在美国本土发表讲话，更是一个罕见的历史性时刻：一位外国领导人在一个仍在与自己国家交战的敌国发表讲话。

尽管华盛顿方面早先预测这场战斗会是短暂的，但美以对伊朗的战争却持续了数月之久，这场始于伊朗伊斯兰共和国最高领袖阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊被杀的军事行动，演变成持续数月的地区动荡，并成为特朗普总统任期内最具代表性的外交政策遗产之一。

曾担任伊朗最高领袖数十年，与美国和以色列对抗的阿亚图拉·哈梅内伊遇害身亡。

佩泽什基安传达的关键信息之一，让我们得以一窥伊朗伊斯兰共和国如何寻求确立其战后地区立场，他告诉伊朗的邻国，必须保障伊朗未来的安全，否则整个地区将不得不“共同生活在不安全之中”。

一位专家表示，这条信息带有隐晦的威胁意味。

“伊朗将地区安全视为不可分割的整体，这表明持续的压力和冲突将给整个地区带来代价，”伦敦查塔姆研究所中东和北非项目主任萨纳姆·瓦基尔告诉 CNN。

但另一位专家，国际危机组织高级分析师哈米德雷扎·阿齐兹表示，这一信息也表明伊朗知道，它需要找到与该地区其他国家共存的方式。

阿齐兹表示：“这反映出人们认识到，归根结底，伊朗需要找到与邻国和平共处的安排。”

佩泽什基安在联合国发表讲话的前一天，伊朗外交部长阿巴斯·阿拉格奇在纽约与特朗普的和平特使史蒂夫·威特科夫举行了至少两个小时的会谈。这是自三个多月前签署了一项不幸的协议以来，两国之间首次出现外交迹象。

在佩泽什基安发表讲话后，美国国务卿马可·卢比奥表示，这些会谈没有取得任何重大突破，这表明今年早些时候签署的谅解备忘录(MoU)已不再可能。

6月份伊朗和美国之间进一步谈判的计划最终未能实现。冲突反而愈演愈烈，使该地区对战争的最终结局更加感到迷茫。在国内，佩泽什基安和那些与华盛顿进行外交接触的伊朗官员也面临着来自强硬派的质疑，这些强硬派认为与特朗普达成的任何协议都等同于投降。

“外交部长必须解释他与侵略敌方代表会面的授权是什么？”强硬派议员易卜拉欣·雷扎伊在阿拉格奇与维特科夫会面后于周三质问道。

佩泽什基安因出席在纽约举行的会议而受到强硬派的批评。

“批评人士担心，如果他向外界发出任何妥协的信号，这将被解读为软弱和绝望的迹象，因此对希望按照自己的条件结束战争的伊朗来说，将适得其反，”危机组织阿齐兹说。

当佩泽什基安和阿拉格奇向世界传达伊朗的要求，并向该地区传递共存的信息时，伊朗国内的安全官员宣布，伊朗的谈判策略将采取更强硬的立场。

伊朗最高国家安全委员会主席穆赫辛·雷扎伊在与佩泽什基安发表讲话大致同一时间接受国家媒体采访时表示，伊朗伊斯兰共和国将在与美国谈判时采取新的框架，要求华盛顿率先迈出第一步。

Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

雷扎伊在采访中表示：“在新框架下，为了谈判而谈判的时代已经结束。任何未来的会谈，或者霍尔木兹海峡的重新开放，都将以华盛顿全面落实伊朗提出的要求为前提条件。”

他的言论或许不仅向华盛顿传递了一个信息，而且也是为了安抚那些对在纽约进行谈判的伊朗官员持怀疑态度的强硬派人士。

然而，就在伊朗在联合国开展外交活动并发出未来与该地区共存的信号之际，阿曼海事安全中心表示，一艘船只在霍尔木兹海峡附近遭到袭击，造成一人死亡。

英国海事贸易运营中心（UKMTO）表示：“建议船舶谨慎通过。”