Iran has no intention of building nuclear weapons, Iranian President Massoud Pezzekian said Wednesday while addressing the U.N. General Assembly, days before international sanctions were reimposed on Tehran over its nuclear ambitions.

“I declare once again before this assembly that Iran has never and will never seek to build a nuclear bomb. We do not seek to acquire nuclear weapons,” Pezheskian stressed.

Three months after the 12-day war with Israel and the US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Iranian leader found himself on the UN podium with the very difficult task of restoring his country’s image, the BBC notes.

Tehran has lost much of its influence in the Middle East while its costly nuclear program has suffered widespread damage.

“My country suffered a violent attack,” Pezheskian said, adding that Israel’s attacks “constituted a serious betrayal of diplomacy.”

He said a “brazen act of aggression” was responsible for the “martyrdom” of children and scientists.

Referring to Israel, he spoke of the “genocide in Gaza“, the “destruction of infrastructure in Syria” and “attacks in Yemen“. “All this with the full support of the most heavily armed regime on the planet and under the guise of self-defense,” he said.

“Who, then, is the agitator for the peoples of the world?”, he asked the Assembly.

He finally called for a “bright future” in which Iran stands strong, along with its powerful neighbors, against “a grand design that imposes genocide” in the region.