Trump in ‘deciding mode’ on Iran, hasn’t ruled out Pezeshkian meeting
When Iran’s delegation arrives in New York for this week’s United Nations General Assembly, its members will be able to attend the diplomatic gathering but will not be free to walk in Central Park or shop on Fifth Avenue without permission. Since 2024, the State Department has restricted the delegation to traveling only between the airport, a Millennium Hilton hotel where they have stayed repeatedly since 2013, and the U.N. headquarters building down the block.
The stepped-up controls introduced by the Trump administration last year prohibit the delegates from buying luxury goods or shopping at certain stores including Costco and Sam’s Club without State Department permission. The State Department cited regulations including measures “to protect the interests of the United States.”
“As a matter of optics, it’s bizarre,” said Marko Milanović, a professor of international law at the University of Reading in the U.K. He pointed out that the U.S., as the U.N.’s host nation, is obligated to permit foreign dignitaries to attend the assembly. “Legally this is not remarkable,” he said.
A 1947 agreement establishing the U.N. headquarters in New York requires the U.S. to not “impose any impediments” on officials from member nations, including granting them visas. But Milanović said there is longstanding tension between the U.N. and the U.S. over how the rules are interpreted, and that the U.S. has placed restrictions on certain attendees in the past, including Soviet representatives.
Adversaries of the United States have long used the U.N. as a prominent perch from which to criticize Washington. Soviet leaders often took to the General Assembly dais during the Cold War to assail Washington. In 1960, Cuba’s Fidel Castro spoke for more than four hours on topics including a condemnation of U.S. intervention in Latin America.
Richard Gowan, program director of global issues and institutions at the International Crisis Group, said Pezeshkian is expected to make the case that Iranians are victims of aggression and that his country has acted in self-defense. While the U.S. and Israel initially faced widespread criticism for attacks on Iran, which critics said violated the U.N. Charter, Tehran has drawn global ire by blocking shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s isolation has been compounded in recent weeks by attacks on Red Sea shipping from Iran-linked Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Trump, who is set to address the U.N. on Tuesday, has justified attacks on Iran by calling it “the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror” and saying it must never be able to develop nuclear weapons. He told Fox News on Sunday he is in “deciding mode” about next steps with Iran and did not rule out meeting with Pezeshkian in New York. Multiple diplomats said Qatari officials plan to use the gathering to discuss the possibility of resuming talks.
In past U.N. appearances, Iranian officials have been reluctant to meet American officials, but Pezeshkian — a political moderate who has advocated for engagement with the West — is angling to speak with analysts from U.S. and European think tanks during the New York visit, according to people familiar with the matter. Some think-tank analysts invited to meet the Iranian delegation said they are wary of U.S. sanctions that restrict informal policy dialogues with Tehran’s officials. “No one wants to be seen going,” said one Iran specialist who previously received an invitation.
Iran’s president was in a precarious position a year ago, too, when he addressed the U.N. a few months after a 12-day bombing campaign by the U.S. and Israel aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear-weapons production facilities. In a 15-minute address, Pezeshkian denied the nation seeks nuclear weapons and called the attacks “a grave betrayal of diplomacy and subversion of efforts towards the establishment of stability and peace.” He did not mention Trump in the address and primarily blamed Israel for stoking unrest in the region while condemning its military operations in Gaza.
Over the past three decades, Iran’s president or prime minister has spoken nearly every year at the U.N. One past speaker was Ali Khamenei, who addressed the General Assembly in 1987 — when he was Iran’s president, before becoming supreme leader. Khamenei was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on the first day of the war.
Even in 1980, as American hostages were being held in Tehran, Iran sent a high-level delegation that used its U.N. appearance not to address the hostage crisis but to rally international condemnation for Iraq’s invasion of Iran.
Despite the rigidity of the official events at U.N. week, the gathering has provided a venue for diplomacy. In 2019, Trump considered reaching out to Iran’s delegation. Last year, Pakistani officials served as intermediaries between the Iranian and U.S. teams, passing messages that helped foster subsequent talks in Islamabad that ultimately made no impact. French officials likewise used the occasion to try to revive a version of a 2015 nuclear pact, though that fizzled too.
No major breakthroughs are expected this year. Gowan said he is unaware of plans for formal negotiations over Iran during U.N. week. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres played down the likelihood of talks. “It is a complex set of problems that requires a serious dialogue between the U.S. and Iran, between Iran and the countries of the Gulf, including the mediators,” he told reporters last week. “Probably it will take place somewhere else.”