Iran’s president heads for U.N. summit ahead of possible Trump meeting

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tuesday that Iran has “no trust” in the United Nations in its current form, with the country’s President Masoud Pezeshkian en route to New York to attend the U.N.’s annual General Assembly.

Araghchi said that Pezeshkian would use his speech at the U.N. to “defend the legitimacy, rights and interests of the Iranian people,” before decrying the lack of “serious condemnation” from “Western and European countries” of “the crimes that have been committed” in Gaza and the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran.

“Therefore, naturally, no trust remains in an organization that is influenced by these countries,” he continued.

President Trump said Sunday that he would “probably” be willing to meet with Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the general assembly.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defense agency issued a warning of potential danger in the country’s south on Tuesday, the first alert since the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched an attack on Riyadh over the weekend.

“A warning has been issued by the National Early Warning Platform in the Najran Province to alert of a potential danger,” read a statement posted online by the agency, which asked people to remain indoors and avoid open areas in the province that borders Yemen. 

The alert was lifted a short while later.

CBS/AFP

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday vowed to “firmly defend” his country’s positions as he departed for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

“We emerged with our heads held high, and this is a source of dignity and pride for all of us. Therefore, we will firmly defend our positions in international forums,” he said before flying out of Iran, according to video broadcast by Iranian state television.

Pezeshkian is due to speak at the U.N. meeting on Wednesday.

“We will make the best possible use of this opportunity to convey Iran’s plight to the international community. We will firmly tell our adversaries that, despite all the unfairness and injustices, the Iranian people have stood their ground,” he said.

Pezeshkian will be the highest-ranking Iranian official to set foot on American soil since the start of the Middle East war, which began in late February with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

The United States has approved the U.N. visits for part of the Iranian delegation despite the war, but the group will be subject to movement restrictions, according to the State Department.

The Iranian president’s communications team have not been authorized to travel however, having been denied visas.

President Trump said Sunday that he would “probably” be willing to meet with Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the U.N. gathering, but no plans for such an encounter have been announced by either side.

CBS/AFP

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday the United Kingdom has agreed to provide limited military support to Saudi Arabia to repel attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Burnham told reporters as he flew to the United Nations General Assembly in New York that he had agreed the Royal Air Force will provide air-to-air refueling of Saudi planes. The agreement is for a matter of weeks.

The conflict between the Houthis and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has reignited, with the Houthis aiming missile and drone strikes at Saudi Arabia, including one that targeted Riyadh on Saturday before being intercepted. The Houthis also declared a blockade on Saudi shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, attacking Saudi-linked vessels and oil facilities inside the kingdom, one of the world’s top oil exporters.

The Houthis advanced inside Yemen earlier this month, seizing the crucial port city of Mokha and key Red Sea islands, allowing them to better monitor shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb, through which some 12% of world trade normally passes.

President Trump weighed striking the Houthis over the weekend after Saudi Arabia requested help, but late Saturday, he decided against ordering U.S. strikes, CBS News has previously reported.

Burnham said he was “acting to secure the interests of Britain and the wider region, because of course Saudi Arabia has been experiencing attack, is looking at potential further disruption, and we need to keep those pathways [for oil] open.”

Britain has condemned the Houthi attacks and said the U.K. will “work with partners to support regional stability, protect civilians and support humanitarian access.”

The leader of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen used the anniversary of his group’s overthrow of the Yemeni government to lash out at Saudi Arabia.

In a pre-recorded speech aired Monday, Abdul Malik al-Houthi said his group’s demands include an end to what he called Saudi “aggression” and the blockade the Saudi-led coalition has imposed on the rebels for about a decade.

“Stop the aggression and end the blockade. Our demands represent the legitimate rights of our people,” he said in the speech aired by the Houthi-run al-Masirah channel.

The Houthis descended from their stronghold in northern Yemen, taking over the capital of Sanaa in September 2014 and forcing the country’s government into exile in Saudi Arabia.

The following year, Saudi Arabia led a multinational coalition that entered the war in an attempt to restore the government. The coalition imposed an air and sea blockade on the Houthi-held areas, as part of its war efforts.

On the very first day of the war, Iran targeted the Navy’s Middle East headquarters in Bahrain — before the U.S. government had evacuated all the military families based there. Some had to wait about a week or more to reach safety, according to multiple families who spoke to CBS News.

“You’re definitely scared,” one military spouse said. “As the week goes on, you wake up to ballistic missiles being fired. We went to sleep with the sound of ballistic missiles again.” 

Iranian missiles and drones targeted Bahrain consistently for several days after the war began, according to another spouse. The scale and duration of those attacks appeared to take the U.S. government by surprise, three sources who were in Bahrain at the time told CBS News, in part because families hadn’t been required to evacuate until the war had already begun.

The military had anticipated some retaliation and had even evacuated the headquarters’ buildings on the base, but “we weren’t expecting that [scale],” one U.S. official said. And there were still several military families living off the base nearby.

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Iraq will suspend flights by Iranian airlines after the U.S. Treasury chief warned that the sanctioned airlines would be “shut down” worldwide later this week.

Two Iraqi government sources confirmed the decision to AFP on Monday, with one saying that Baghdad would “enforce the ban on Iranian airlines in accordance with the U.S. Treasury decision starting Tuesday at dawn.” The source warned that “countries that do not implement the decision risk sanctions.

On Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Iranian airlines will have trouble functioning under the weight of American sanctions.

“If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets or you will be knocked out of the dollar system,” he told CNBC in an interview.

Iran’s airspace was completely shut after the U.S. and Israel launched attacks in late February. Since then, some travel has resumed but only for flights run by Iranian carriers.

-CBS/AFP

A maritime security agency said Monday that two tankers were hit either by an “unknown projectile” or debris from one in the Strait of Hormuz, where vessels have come under repeated fire since the Iran war broke out.

Iran is seeking to maintain a stranglehold on the vital waterway as leverage in its war with the United States, while Washington has imposed a counterblockade of Iranian ports, with both sides striking ships they accuse of noncompliance.

In the first incident reported on Monday, “a tanker conducting an inbound transit was struck by an unknown projectile” in the Hormuz, said the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) operations center.

“Two crew have sustained minor injuries and the vessel is reported to be continuing to its next port of call under its own power,” it added.

British security firm Vanguard Tech said U.K.-flagged tanker La Stephanie was hit by a drone while sailing towards the Gulf, also reporting minor injuries to two crew members.

Later in the day, UKMTO said an “LPG tanker has been hit by debris from unknown projectiles”. No casualties were reported in the second incident and the tanker would also continue to its next port of call, it said.

-CBS/AFP

The head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council held a call with President Trump in which he requested American support against the Iranian-backed Houthis, a source in his office told the AFP news agency on Monday.

The president did not promise military support, the source said, adding that the call took place on Sunday and was intended as a show of solidarity with Yemen’s embattled government after the Houthis seized the country’s entire Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive.

Mr. Trump weighed up striking Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis over the weekend but ended up holding off late Saturday night, sources familiar with the discussions told CBS News on Monday.

-CBS/AFP

Yemen’s national negotiating delegation met with United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg in Oman’s capital, Muscat, on Monday, the state-run Saba News Agency reported, citing an informed source.

The source said the delegation outlined Yemen’s position on what it described as Saudi Arabia’s “aggression” and the continued blockade of Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen, as well as Saudi military mobilization. 

It also said the delegation attributed the current escalation to a Saudi strike on Sana’a International Airport on June 13.

According to the source, the delegation said Saudi Arabia had rejected ending restrictions on Yemeni airports and ports, lifting economic and humanitarian restrictions, and paying salaries—issues it described as the Yemeni people’s demands before the United Nations.

President Trump weighed up striking Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthis over the weekend but ended up holding off late Saturday night, sources familiar with the discussions told CBS News on Monday.

During Wednesday discussions with his national security advisers, the president indicated he was leaning against strikes. But after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman called on Thursday to again ask the president to assist, 10 days after he requested that Mr. Trump order strikes on the Houthis, Mr. Trump told the Pentagon to get ready for air strikes. 

Late Saturday, however, the decision was made to hold off on U.S. action against the Houthis for now, the sources said, with the White House reluctant to expand the battlefield right now.

Reuters reported Monday that Mr. Trump spoke by phone with Rashad Al-Alimi, head of the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council, the executive body of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

The Houthis have gained key strategic territory – particularly along the Red Sea coastline – from the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in recent weeks as the conflict has worsened.

Nearly 130,000 Yemenis have been displaced by the escalating conflict in Yemen, the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Monday. 

According to the IOM, 129,438 people – from 21,573 households – have been displaced across seven regions in Yemen as the conflict between the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government escalates.

The IOM said the figure rose by 11,352 people in just three days, highlighting the rapidly worsening displacement crisis.

“These are families who have lost their homes and their income,” said Othman Belbeisi, the IOM Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “They are arriving in towns that were already struggling. Host communities are sharing the little they have, but they cannot do it alone. We need support now, for the people who have fled and for those who are taking them in.”

As of Sept. 20, another 3,106 people had crossed the Red Sea from Yemen to Djibouti, according to the body.

Wall Street stocks rose early Monday as oil prices retreated amid optimism that this week’s diplomatic events could alter the course of the Iran war.

This week’s United Nations gathering will bring President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to New York City, meaning the market is “resting some additional hope” on the possibility of a meeting between the men, said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O’Hare.

The president said Sunday he would “probably” meet Pezeshkian.

Mr. Trump is also slated to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit later in the week, an engagement that could also touch on ways to lessen the U.S.-Iran war’s impact on oil supply.

About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2% at 51,768.81.

The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6% to 7,698.74, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 1.1% to 26,804.02.

A dip in U.S. Treasury bond yields also supported equities.

Lower crude prices and bond yields “seem to be a tailwind for markets, but this also means that if you are realistic to those factors, this could reverse at any point,” said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.

CBS/AFP

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned Monday that Iranian airlines will have trouble functioning globally in two days under the weight of American sanctions – as the Trump administration seeks to keep pressure on Tehran.

On Sept. 23, “all the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world,” Bessent told CNBC in an interview.

“If they land, you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets or you will be knocked out of the dollar system,” he added.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister, Senator Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, arrived in Tehran Monday to meet with senior Iranian officials, Iran’s IRNA state news agency reported.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said earlier that Iran and Pakistan had maintained “very good and growing” relations, with ties improving across various areas in recent months. He said the visit was taking place within the framework of bilateral discussions.

Baqaei rejected speculation that Naqvi was carrying a special message or proposal from the United States, saying the main purpose of the visit was to follow up on previous agreements between Tehran and Islamabad.

Pakistan, like Qatar, has acted as a mediator throughout the Iran war, liaising between U.S. and Iranian officials. 

Naqvi has visited Tehran several times in recent months. During his latest visit, he met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and other senior officials.

Oil prices fell more than 3% Monday as tanker traffic and energy flows through the Strait of Hormuz picked up, although the strait has remained largely closed and uncertainty persists over the future of U.S.-Iran diplomacy. 

President Trump said Sunday he would “probably” be willing to meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of this week’s United Nations General Assembly, but Pezeshkian’s communications team have been refused visas, Iranian state media reported Monday.

Tension between Saudi Arabia and the Iranian-backed Houthis, and Saudi Arabia’s closure of a key oil pipeline that was hit by drones more than a week ago, also continue to add pressure to global oil supplies.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell more than 3% to less than $100.00 per barrel on Monday, however. It was trading at roughly $72 a barrel in late February, before the start of the war in Iran.

CBS/AP

A tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unknown projectile Monday, a British navy agency said, with two crew members reportedly sustaining minor injuries. 

The incident took place late Monday morning local time according to the U.K. Navy’s Maritime Trade Operations center (UKMTO), which cited unspecified military authorities.

“The vessel is reported to be continuing to its next port of call under its own power,” UKMTO said in its bulletin, which was posted to X. 

No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the incident, which authorities were investigating, according to the agency.

The United States has refused to issue visas for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s communications team, ruling them out of this week’s trip to the U.N. General Assembly, Iranian state media reported Monday.

“In an unprecedented hostile move by the U.S. government, Trump has denied U.S. visas to certain members of the president’s high-level delegation,” state news agency IRNA reported. The Mehr news agency also carried the story, citing a spokesperson for the Iranian presidency.

Mr. Trump told Fox News on Sundaythat he was “probably” open to meeting with Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the summit this week.

CBS/AFP

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard Corps “has prepared itself for a long-term war” and is now “more prepared than before,” spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said on Sunday, according to the country’s semi-official Mehr News.

Mohebbi described what he called a “historical and disgraceful defeat” for the United States, arguing that Washington has suffered strategic setbacks in several areas, including its failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the vulnerability of its regional military bases and intelligence facilities, and the performance of U.S. military technology against Iran’s capabilities.

He said the U.S. had also suffered a loss of regional influence, claiming that “America has not lost a war; America has lost a system.”

Mohebbi said Iran, on the other hand, was now helping to determine a new emerging security order for the region.

“The war continues, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has prepared itself for a long-term war,” he said. “It was ready before, and now it is even more prepared for a long-term war.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will leave Tehran on Tuesday to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Iran’s semi-official Mehr News reported Monday.

Pezeshkian is expected to address the summit and hold meetings with several other national leaders on the sidelines of the event, the outlet reported.

President Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he was “probably” open to the idea of meeting with Pezeshkian this week.

Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Sunday that any new U.S. assault would be met with an expansion of the already-complex regional conflict to new areas.

“If a new aggression occurs, we will certainly change the weaponry and the geography of the war,” IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said Sunday according to the country’s semi-official Fars news agency.

Mohebbi added that Tehran was prepared for the nearly seven-month war to drag on.

The statement came after President Trump reiterated on Sunday that he was poised to make a decision on whether to re-intensify U.S. attacks on Iran that he previously said could “annihilate” the country’s Islamic Republic regime, or to seek a new diplomatic agreement to end the war.

Mr. Trump told Fox News he was “probably” open to the idea of meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian this week on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

President Trump told Fox News that he’s in a “deciding mode” on Iran, forecasting “very big things” to come in the near future as he considers his options in the war. 

Fox News’ Trey Yingst said he spoke with the president, who said he’s considering a handful of choices, including “wiping Iran out,” “letting them rot economically,” or striking a deal. 

“My question is, if and when do I blow the entire nation up? They better behave,” the president told Yingst. 

Yingst said the president also told him he’d probably be open to meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who is expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week.

The comments come after Mr. Trump told Axios on Thursday that he’s facing a “big decision” on whether to “annihilate” the Iranian regime.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi during a rare visit to Cairo on Sunday.

Sisi’s office said the meeting, attended by Egypt’s spy chief Hassan Rashad, included discussion of the wars in Iran, the Gaza Strip and Sudan, as well as attacks on Gulf countries and threats to maritime security.

Sisi stressed “the paramount importance of settling regional crises through political and diplomatic tracks,” according to a presidency statement.

On Saturday, the U.S. State Department warned Americans against traveling to the region as hostilities rage between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Houthis.

Ratcliffe’s visit also came days after de facto Saudi leader Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Sisi in Cairo. The pair urged safe and secure maritime navigation through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, after the Iran-backed Houthis seized the Yemeni coast along the vital waterway in a lightning offensive.

Cairo is a key U.S. ally in the region and one of the top recipients of U.S. military aid. It has repeatedly positioned itself as a stabilizing force in a turbulent region, keeping open lines of communication with rival sides, including Israel, Hamas and Iran.

Sisi’s office said Ratcliffe “lauded Egypt’s pivotal role in supporting efforts aimed at reaching peaceful, comprehensive settlements to regional crises.”

CBS/AFP

Iran has conveyed to Washington through mediators its conditions for reopening the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which it has blockaded throughout the Middle East war, Tehran’s top negotiator said Sunday.

The two foes are locked in a stalemate months into the conflict, particularly over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route for the world’s oil and gas.

“Our messages and the explanation of our conditions have been clearly conveyed to the other party through mediators,” said Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has acted as chief negotiator in talks to end the war.

“As long as the conditions are not met … and the U.S. commitments are not honored, it will be impossible to return to the situation from before the negotiations and to an open strait,” he added, according to state television.

Mohsen Rezaei, the head of Iran’s supreme national security council, said on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had conveyed its conditions to the U.S. via mediator Qatar.

“Our conditions are an end to the war on all fronts, the release of our frozen funds and an end to the naval blockade,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

CBS/AFP

Three Muslim and Arab countries condemned the Houthis’ attack in Riyadh, saying it was a threat to regional security and stability and a violation of international law.

Egypt, Jordan and Kuwait, in separate statements, said their governments stand with Saudi Arabia in support of its sovereignty and protection of its civilians.

The Muslim World League also condemned the attack on civilians and civilian infrastructure as a violation of “all religious values as well as international and humanitarian laws and norms.”

It was the first time the Saudi capital has been targeted since the escalation in fighting with the Iran-backed rebels opened a new front in the Iran war. Saudi Arabia said the attack was intercepted. Some residents in Riyadh heard an explosion, and later some saw a plume of smoke near the airport. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

In recent weeks, fighting has intensified between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who have taken control of vast swaths of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, along with several islands in the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a move which has put more pressure on an already stressed global oil supply.

CBS/AP

U.S. embassies across the Middle East early Sunday morning local time issued security alerts for American citizens in the region. 

“Due to tensions in the Middle East, the security environment remains complex with the potential for unforeseen escalation,” said the alerts issued by embassies in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The alerts did not state a specific threat, but called for Americans to “exercise heightened vigilance and be aware of potential flight cancellations, airspace closures, and travel disruptions.”

They cited the recent fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, noting that the conflict between the two sides “has the potential to escalate rapidly.”

Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi coalition fighting the Houthis, said in an earlier statement posted on X that Saudi forces had intercepted a ballistic missile fired at the capital city Riyadh on Saturday.

In recent weeks, fighting has intensified between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, who have taken control of vast swaths of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, along with several islands in the critical Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a move which has put more pressure on an already stressed global oil supply.

Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West oil pipeline was damaged by drone strikes earlier this month believed to have been conducted by Iran-backed militias operating in Iraq, although no group has taken credit for the attacks. 

The Houthis have attempted a blockade on Saudi ports since July.