UN General Assembly: Trump blasts Iran as ‘leading sponsor of terrorism’ days after attack on Iranian soil

Iran, in turn, attacks US for 'economic war that targets the Iranian people'

President Donald Trump has attacked the leadership of Iran during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he claimed the regime was sowing “chaos, death, and destruction”.

The accusation came during an address in which the American leader once again rebuked international norms and order, and defended his decision to pull the US from the Iran nuclear agreement, which had been pushed for and signed by former President Barack Obama.

“We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons,” Mr Trump said of his decision to pull out of the deal and reimpose sanctions.

He continued: “We cannot allow a regime that chants ‘death to America’ and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on earth. We just can’t do it."

In his own speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, criticised Washington's hostile policy towards his country, and said the efforts tp undermine it were doomed.

"The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions, not only targets the Iranian people, but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade", Mr Rouhani said.

An expert with the National Iranian American Council expressed a similar sentiment following Mr Trump's speech.

"If President Trump were truly interested in shifting from the warpath to negotiations, he would halt his pressure campaign unjustly targeting 80m Iranians, fire the war hawks in his cabinet and return the United States to compliance with the Iran nuclear accord,” Jamal Abdi, the president of that group, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. The National Iranian American Council is a non-profit and non-partisan interest group that claims to advocate for greater understanding between the American and Iranian people.

The comments on Iran’s involvement in terror plots in the Middle East come just days after a terror attack on a military parade in southern Iran that left at last 25 people dead.

In that attack, militants dressed as soldiers opened fire on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as members of that elite group marched through the city off Ahvaz on Saturday.

That attack on Iran has been claimed by Arab separatists and Isis, and Iranian officials themselves have blamed the US and Gulf countries for the attack. The Iranians promised, in response, to deliver a “devastating” response to the US and its allies involved.

None of those who have sought to cast blame or take responsibility provided much evidence for their claims.

Mr Trump decided to pull the US from the Iran deal, and defended that decision on Tuesday during his speech to the UN.

He said the deal was a “windfall for Iran’s leaders”, and said that the deal allowed Iran to increase its defence budget by “40 per cent”.

But, Mr Trump noted, the United States has recently begun to reimpose sanctions on the country and regime, and said another round of sanctions will go into effect on November 5. He pledged that the US is working with allies to diminish the amount of crude oil that is bought from Iran, and said that his administration is prepared to work to undermine Iran and to “support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny”.