JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Now let's hear more about what happened at the U.N. today. A day after President Trump warned that he could annihilate Iran if they don't make a deal, Iran's president took the podium, and he called the U.S. a terrorist state. Behind the scenes, though, diplomats are scrambling to find some way to de-escalate the war, which has upended global trade, NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian painted his country as a victim, holding up pictures of the supreme leader killed in the first days of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran and of schoolgirls killed in a strike on a school that the Pentagon is still investigating.
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PRESIDENT MASOUD PEZESHKIAN: (Through interpreter) Those who are terrorists and train and protect terrorists describe us as such. We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists.
KELEMEN: Speaking through an interpreter, he said Iran would not bow its head to a bully. And he painted President Trump as a threat to the international order.
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PEZESHKIAN: (Through interpreter) We must not allow the 21st century to go back to an era of only the powerful and the bullying powers and the hegemons. We must not build a world in which military power replaces politics and negotiations.
KELEMEN: Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran can't lecture the world about human rights given its brutal crackdown on protesters earlier this year, before the U.S. and Israel launched the war.
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MARCO RUBIO: I think slaughtering 10,000 of your own people in protests is a violation of the U.N. - I hope it's a violation of the U.N. principles. I think sponsoring terrorist organizations in the region to attack your neighbors, attack energy infrastructure, attack civilian sites is a violation of the U.N. system. So I don't know what standing Iran has to lecture anyone on human rights or the international system when they habitually violate it.
KELEMEN: On the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, U.S. and Iranian negotiators have been holding talks through mediators. Rubio did not give details but says President Trump wants to make a deal that would end Iran's nuclear ambitions.
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RUBIO: I think the fundamental challenge, and it's really at the core of what Iran needs to decide - do they want to be a country or do they want to be a revolution?
KELEMEN: Rubio spoke to reporters after meeting Russia's foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, to discuss another war that has global implications. Ukraine has offered to pause attacks on Russia's oil and gas industry if Russia stops bombarding Ukraine's energy grids ahead of winter.
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RUBIO: Both sides have expressed an interest in some limited ceasefire that involved grain and energy. That's something that might - it doesn't solve the war. But it does, I think, in some ways, potentially alleviate some of the global pressures that are being felt as a result of that.
KELEMEN: Lavrov, at a Security Council meeting on Ukraine later in the day, said Russia has no intention to pause what he calls a special military operation. Ukraine's foreign minister said Russia is expanding the war, pulling in thousands of mercenaries from 37 countries in Africa. U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz says Cuban mercenaries are also being drawn into the war, and he raised concerns about Russia violating NATO airspace.
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MIKE WALTZ: The spreading of this conflict is unacceptable. It is dangerous. And I appreciate many of the remarks and speeches today in supporting our efforts - hasn't always been that way, frankly - but in supporting our efforts to try to end this war before it spreads out of control.
KELEMEN: He says global food and energy markets are at stake. The same is true in the Persian Gulf, where the U.S. still has not spelled out a clear endgame. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, New York.
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