UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for nations to unite against human rights abuses, religious divisions, brutal conflicts and an unjust world economy in an emotional farewell yesterday. But his remarks were overshadowed by a military coup in Thailand and the Iranian president's fiery defense of his country's nuclear program.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for nations to unite against human rights abuses, religious divisions, brutal conflicts and an unjust world economy in an emotional farewell yesterday. But his remarks were overshadowed by a military coup in Thailand and the Iranian president's fiery defense of his country's nuclear program.

Annan's opening address to the 61st annual U.N. General Assembly hit many issues on the ambitious agenda that leaders of the 192 member nations confront - reviving a stalled Mideast peace process, curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions, getting U.N. peacekeepers into conflict-wracked Darfur and promoting democracy.

As the U.N. chief spoke, tanks were surrounding the offices of Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as the military staged a bloodless coup while he was in New York for the ministerial meetings - highlighting the threats to global security.

Thaksin initially switched speaking slots so he could make his speech on Tuesday evening, a day earlier than planned, but later canceled the address.

Trying to build bridges with people in the Middle East angry with the United States over Iraq and Lebanon, President Bush assured skeptical Muslims he is not waging war with Islam and urged support for the people trying to transform the region and bring Mideast peace.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the podium hours later and was harshly critical of U.S. policies in Iraq and Lebanon. He also accused Washington of abusing its veto power in the U.N. Security Council to punish others while protecting its own interests and allies.

He insisted that his nation's nuclear activities are "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eye" of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, and he reiterated his nation's commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

"If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council" and assign themselves the roles of "prosecutor, judge and executioner," Ahmadinejad said. "Is this a just order?"

A U.N. Security Council resolution had given Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face sanctions, but Tehran rejected the deadline. The U.S., France and other nations have been holding talks on what the consequences should be.

Bush avoided a confrontational tone toward Tehran in his speech but insulted the government by directing his remarks directly to the Iranian people.

"The greatest obstacle to this future is that your rulers have chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons," he said.

More than a week after the U.S. marked the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush and other leaders also stressed the need to step up the fight against terrorism.

Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a staunch U.S. ally who spoke shortly after Bush, also urged the world to confront the plague of terrorism head-on and end ending conflicts in the Islamic world to eliminate the "desperation and injustice" that breed extremism.

"Unless we end foreign occupation and suppression of Muslim peoples," he said, "terrorism and extremism will continue to find recruits among alienated Muslims in various parts of the world," he said, and the top priority should be ending "the tragedy of Palestine."

Annan, meanwhile, warned that "as long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, and as long as Israelis are blown up in buses or in dance halls, so long will passions everywhere be inflamed."

Failure to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's 40-year occupation will continue to hurt the U.N.'s reputation and raise questions about its impartiality, he said. It also will stymie the U.N.'s best efforts to resolve other conflicts, "including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose peoples need our help just as badly, and are entitled to it," he warned.

Ministers from the Quartet that drafted the stalled road map to Mideast peace - the U.S., the U.N., the European Union and Russia - will meet today, and the Security Council was to hold a ministerial meeting Thursday that Arab leaders hope will help revive the Mideast peace process.

Annan, whose second five-year term ends on Dec. 31, said the past decade had seen progress in development, security and the rule of law - the three great challenges he said humanity faced in his first address to the General Assembly in 1997.

But the secretary-general said too many people are still exposed to "brutal conflict" and the fear of terrorism has increased the risk of a clash of civilizations and religions.