Iran, US escalate 'annihilate' and 'crushing' rhetoric at UN — SkimNews
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- Donald Trump used his UNGA speech Tuesday to threaten to "annihilate" Iran, hours after his envoys held a three-hour meeting with Iranian officials that he called "very good"
- Iran's General Staff warned its armed forces are ready to deliver strikes "more crushing and less predictable" than earlier in the war, while the Iranian delegation walked out during Trump's speech with only one person remaining seated
- Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in the first in-person US-Iran talks since VP JD Vance met Iranian officials in Switzerland in June
- Iran wants US sanctions and the naval blockade lifted; the US wants free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran's nuclear programme, with Qatar mediating to convert incompatible demands into reciprocal steps
- Andreas Krieg of King's College London told Al Jazeera the rhetoric "is not a contradiction to the diplomacy" but part of a "war over narratives" that could paradoxically make compromise easier by letting each side claim it negotiated from strength
- Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian struck defiant tones separately, with Khamenei calling knowledge, faith and morality "a sharp sword" against the US and Israel, and Pezeshkian accusing the US of trying to force Iran into surrender
Why it matters: Each side is performing strength for domestic audiences while secretly moving toward compromise — Iran's fuel-price spike and midterm elections cited in the source make the political stakes immediate. The June agreement lapsed after repeated violations during seven months of US-Israel strikes on Iran, so this UNGA channel is the only diplomatic lifeline; if rhetoric spirals into a major attack or Israeli escalation, Qatar-mediated sequencing on sanctions, the blockade, Hormuz and the nuclear file collapses.
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