Iranian President Changed UN Speech After Trump Spoke

Iran's leader on Wednesday said he scrapped his planned UN remarks after hearing President Trump threaten to "annihilate" his country the day prior, the Washington Post reports. In an address to the UN General Assembly, President Masoud Pezeshkian held up photos of children killed in a school strike in southern Iran and said, "the United States president described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. You see these children? These children perished under bombs with weapons used by the United States and Israel."

Pezeshkian argued Iran "must be powerful so as to avoid being threatened, to avoid its future being threatened," but insisted it does not seek nuclear weapons, calling peaceful nuclear technology a right. He said Tehran is open to "dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force." The New York Times reports that the sole US diplomat present in the hall as Pezeshkian began to speak walked out, a move the paper describes as having "become something of a tradition in recent years." On Tuesday, four Cubans stood and left as Trump described the country as a "failed state."