Iran has dismissed Donald Trump’s threat to “annihilate” the country as propaganda, warning that any US military attack could provoke “crushing blows” against America.
Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, Trump said he faced a choice over whether to strike a deal with Iran and allow it to rebuild, or launch further attacks to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and “drive them into Hell.”
Trump also accused Iran’s “fanatical” regime of killing more than 72,000 of its own citizens this year, claiming that 10,000 people had recently been killed during protests.
In a statement reported by Iran’s Press TV, the Iranian Armed Forces warned that the country would respond with “even harsher, crushing, and unpredictable blows to the aggressors.”
“The rhetoric of the US president will not alter the balance of power calculations and will never compensate for this country’s diminished position in the emerging global order or America’s humiliating defeats in the war against Iran and the [regional] Resistance Front,” the statement said.
Despite the escalating threats, Trump said he had held a “very good meeting” with his Iranian counterparts. He added that Iran could choose “potential greatness or obliteration.”
“It’s to their advantage to make a deal,” Trump said, adding: “We have another one scheduled with them in the near future.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the United Nations General Assembly
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (C) during a farewell ceremony before his departure to New York to attend the UN General Assembly
Smoke and fire rise from the site of airstrikes at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran
Details of the meeting were not immediately released. However, the discussions are expected to have focused on the ongoing war in Iran and possible ways to bring the conflict to an end, echoing previous talks between the two sides.
Oil prices fell on Wednesday after Trump said US and Iranian representatives had met.
Brent crude, the international benchmark, and West Texas Intermediate, the main US oil contract, slipped to $98.91 and $89.93 per barrel respectively in early Asian trading. Both remained well below the symbolic $100 threshold they had repeatedly surpassed since the Middle East war began in February.
Almost seven months after US-Israeli strikes on Tehran ignited the conflict, Washington and Tehran remain locked in a standoff. Iran has kept the Strait of Hormuz closed, while the United States continues its counter-blockade of Iranian ports.
Meanwhile, a separate confrontation between Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen has spread across the kingdom, placing further pressure on energy shipments through the Red Sea.
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Trump has promised that oil prices will fall “as soon as” the United States wins the war.
The decline in crude prices followed reports that Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, had restarted operations along its East-West Pipeline. The vital export route was shut down amid the wider conflict destabilising the Middle East.
Riyadh said earlier this month that drones launched from Iraq had forced the pipeline to close. Saudi Arabia had increasingly relied on the route to circumvent Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The kingdom is targeting a resumption of exports later this week, Bloomberg reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
However, while Saudi oil giant Aramco reportedly told Asian refiners they could soon collect crude from the Red Sea port of Yanbu, Bloomberg said the company had informed European customers that they would receive no oil allocations in October.
The annual parade of UN General Assembly speeches is set to continue, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian having arrived on Tuesday evening, according to Iranian state media.
He is set to address the world body for the first time since the US and Israel launched attacks on his country.
Iranians drive next to an anti-US billboard carrying a sentence in Persian that reads, ‘The devil army will be drowned in the Persian Gulf’
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Trump’s roving envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner on the sidelines of the UN’s signature diplomatic gathering.
Araghchi said that Tehran’s demands included ‘the immediate lifting of the (US) naval blockade, the prompt payment of all Iranian assets that have been frozen, and an end to the war on all resistance fronts,’ state news agency IRIB reported.
Meanwhile, even tighter US sanctions intended to cripple Iranian aviation come into force on Wednesday, after Washington vowed to ‘shut down’ Tehran’s carriers and punish anyone doing business with them.
In their first acknowledgement of disruption, Iranian media reported late Tuesday that flights to the Iraqi and Omani capitals would be cancelled the following day, but other routes would be unaffected.
The new measures, announced by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday, follow earlier aviation sanctions as well as his threat of an ‘economic D-Day’ meant to force the Islamic republic into submission, after military means of ending the Middle East war stall.
It remained unclear what their full impact would be, as the Iranian aviation sector has already been targeted for years by various sanctions.