DUBAI: President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran can hold direct talks with the United States if Washington demonstrates “in practice” that it is not hostile to Tehran.

“We are not hostile towards the US. They should end their hostility towards us by showing their goodwill in practice. We are brothers with the Americans as well.”

“We do not want to fight with America if it respects our rights. It is not us who are hostile (to the Americans). We have not built military bases around their country,” the Iranian president said.

President Pezeshkian expressed these views on Monday at a news conference in Tehran while responding to the question whether Tehran would be open to direct talks with the US to revive a 2015 nuclear deal.

Pezeshkian says Iran has not built military bases around America

Former US president Donald Trump reneged on that deal in 2018, arguing it was too generous to Tehran, and restored harsh US sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to gradually violate the agreement’s nuclear limits.

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After taking office in January 2021, US President Joe Biden tried to negotiate a revival of the nuclear pact under which Iran had restricted its nuclear programme in return for relief from US, European Union and UN sanctions. However, Tehran then refused to directly negotiate with Washington and worked mainly through European or Arab intermediaries.

About recent fresh sanctions by US allies on Iran for allegedly delivering ballistic missiles to Moscow, President Pezeshkian said his government had not transferred any weapons to Russia since it took office in August. However, he added, “It is possible that a delivery took place in the past.”

Disarm Israel first

The Iranian president also insisted on Iran’s right to maintain its missile programme, which has drawn Western criticism, as a deterrent against its arch-foe Israel.

“They (the West) want us not to have missiles, that is fine, but you need to disarm Israel first,” he said, adding that otherwise “they can drop bombs on us whenever they want, like in Gaza”.

On the domestic front, the president vowed to ensure the morality police would no longer bother women, in remarks to the media on the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody. “The morality police were not supposed to confront (women). I will follow up so they don’t bother” them, the president said.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2024