Published Updated

USA22 September, 20262 min read

Trump Tells U.N. He Could Annihilate Iran After Three-Hour U.S.-Iran Talks

Trump threatened to annihilate Iran if no end-of-war deal is reached. US and Iranian officials held three-hour talks on the sidelines after his UN speech.

Read the story
Trump Tells U.N. He Could Annihilate Iran After Three-Hour U.S.-Iran Talks
Image: 매일경제
Scored

NBC News was read line by line by the Watchdog: 7.1. See the score →

Trump threatens, talks resume

President Donald Trump told the United Nations General Assembly he faced a “big decision” on whether to strike Iran again or pursue a peace deal, and he said he could “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if the conflict went unresolved. President Donald Trump also said U.S. officials held a “very good” meeting with Iranian leaders on the sidelines of the UNGA, and he said the talks lasted about three hours.

Steve Witkoff said the discussions were completed and expressed hope they would prove “constructive and promising,” while mediators shuttled between the U.S. and Iranian teams. Mohsen Rezaei said Iran is in “no hurry” to negotiate with the U.S., adding that “Iran's conditions are in the hands of Pakistan, Qatar and the other intermediaries.”

Image from ABC
Image: ABC
Reporting for this sectionBBCAP News

Rhetoric and walkouts

Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff warned it is ready to respond with “crushing” severer attacks than earlier in the war, after Trump threatened to “annihilate” Iran at the UN. Iran’s General Staff accused the U.S. president of using the UN platform to justify “aggression,” and it described Trump’s repeated threats as “not a sign of power but a sign of their strategic desperation.”

Trump said he could “annihilate” the Islamic Republic and asked whether a deal would let Iran “rebuild and create a far greater country,” and most of Iran’s delegation walked out of the chamber as he spoke. Mohsen Rezaei described Trump’s speech as “clumsy” and “criminal,” and he said it was “nothing more than the clumsy and stupid defense of a criminal accused and defeated aggressor” in world public opinion.

Image from ABC News
Image: ABC News
Reporting for this sectionAl JazeeraEl Nuevo Diario

What the U.S. says comes next

President Donald Trump predicted a deal would come “right after the election” in November, saying “it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” and he said Iran was “waiting to see how I do in the midterm election.” Trump told reporters he was considering whether to drive Iran “into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations,” while also saying the U.S. goal was to ensure “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

NBC News reported that the U.N.’s Human Rights Council found in a report last week “reasonable grounds to believe” the U.S. had committed war crimes during “indiscriminate attacks” against an Iranian school and a residential area in February. The U.S. and Iran also faced aviation fallout, as Iranian officials said flights to Iran were canceled after pressure from U.S. sanctions, and Iranian media citing the Civil Aviation Authority said Baghdad, Iraq, Oman and Azerbaijan would no longer receive flights from Iran.

Reporting for this sectionNBC NewsABC