“Yes they did hit us,” he said, “but we did not bend the knee.”

It was the first time in the world body’s 81-year history that the president of a country that is actively at war with the United States has set foot in New York to address the Assembly. Just seven months ago, Mr. Pezeshkian was running his country from an underground bunker, trying to stay alive as U.S. and Israeli airstrikes rained down.

Now, Mr. Pezeshkian is being protected by the Secret Service, as per protocol, and he has been cruising through Manhattan in convoys of S.U.V.s as well as holding a marathon of diplomatic meetings.

Mr. Trump focused on Iran in his address to world leaders on Tuesday., saying that he faced a choice: to strike a deal with Iran and help it become economically prosperous, or to “annihilate” it. Mr. Trump’s goals in the war have often shifted, and he now often states that his primary objective is to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.

In his speech, Mr. Pezeshkian stressed that Iran was attacked by the United States and Israel, its top leaders had been assassinated, its schoolchildren killed by American bombs and its population subjected to severe economic hardships. He showed pictures of school-age children and fresh graves.

Among the other leaders scheduled to address the Assembly on Wednesday are Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, President Javier Milei of Argentina and Delcy Rodríguez, who has led Venezuela’s government since the United States deposed Nicolás Maduro in January.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa of Syria gave the first speech on Wednesday, using his time to highlight the many ways his country has been folded back into the international community after more than a decade of civil war.

In an unexpected development on Tuesday, American and Iranian representatives met through mediators for the first time since a peace agreement fell apart in July. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, communicated through Qatari mediators with the U.S. special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, a son-in-law of Mr. Trump’s, on the sidelines of the General Assembly.

According to two Iranian officials, they discussed how Tehran and Washington could resume peace talks. Esmail Baghaei, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry, said the Iranians had demanded a halt to the war and the lifting of the naval blockade on ports, state media reported.

Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told Iranian state television on Tuesday that the supreme leader had “right now decided to give the government an open hand to negotiate.”

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