Hassan Rouhani
Hassan RouhaniReuters

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that the next US leader must accept Tehran's demands.

"We are not a bargaining chip in US elections and domestic policy," Rouhani said in a virtual address to the UN General Assembly, according to AFP.

"Any US administration after the upcoming elections will have no choice but to surrender to the resilience of the Iranian nation," he stated.

The comments come a day after the Trump administration announced an executive order and new sanctions against Iran aimed at enforcing United Nations sanctions.

The sanctions put in place a new arms embargo on Iran to replace a UN ban set to expire in October. Administration officials say it is an indefinite ban on weapons sales and allows for sanctions on any international companies or individuals that seek to violate the embargo.

Last month, Washington started the process of restoring all pre-2015 UN sanctions against Iran. The move to activate the “snapback” came after the UN Security Council rejected the US resolution to extend the arms embargo on Iran, which is due to expire in October.

However, the president of the UN Security Council rejected the US demand, saying there was no general agreement among council members.

Tensions have soared between Iran and the United States under President Donald Trump, who pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama and slapped sweeping sanctions on the country.

Joe Biden, Trump's rival in the November 3 elections, backs the 2015 nuclear deal.

"The United States can impose neither negotiations nor war on us. Life is hard under sanctions. However, harder is life without independence," Rouhani said on Tuesday, according to AFP.

"And for the world: Today is the time to say 'no' to bullying and arrogance. The era of dominance and hegemony is long over. Our nations and children deserve a better and safer world based on the rule of law," he continued.

Trump made clear in his own address that the United States was out of the nuclear deal.

"We withdrew from the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the world's leading state sponsor of terror," he said.