'We will never bow our head': Iran's president strikes defiant tone in UN speech

'We will never bow our head': Iran's president strikes defiant tone in UN speech Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday that Tehran will never “bow its head” to US threats but is open to diplomacy, a day after President Donald Trump threatened to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic.

Addressing Trump directly, Pezeshkian said the US leader “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[s] or bend at the knee”. Israel and the US attacked Iran in February amid negotiations over its nuclear programme.

The war has dragged on, with two ceasefires collapsing, and pulled Arab Gulf states into the conflict, as well as Yemen and Lebanon.

Pezeshkian began his speech holding a photo of Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated on 28 February in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli attack.

He also shared photographs of Iranian children killed by US air strikes and their graves.

Read more: 'We will never bow our head': Iran's president strikes defiant tone in UN speech During the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian holds up a picture of victims killed by Israeli and American air strikes, on 23 September 2026 (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)