Pezeshkian: Iran ready for nuclear talks but won’t accept ‘bullying’
Mike Waltz, the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the US rejected Iran’s peace proposal because Iranian negotiators “were asking for everything up front” with only a subsequent promise to talk.
Waltz made the comments on CNN’s State of the Union, echoing President Donald Trump’s Saturday statement that he had rejected the proposal, which was raised at the recent UN General Assembly in New York. Iran had asked for relief “from billions and billions of sanctions that are going into place” as part of an economic blockade on Iran, Waltz said.
“They were asking for everything up front with a promise that they would then talk,” Waltz told CNN. “The president is just not confident that the Iranians are coming in good faith and that we will truly negotiate the end of their nuclear program.”
Trump said on Saturday that the US had rejected Iran’s plan because desperation was driving Tehran’s push for an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz. “They want to make a deal to open the Hormuz strait immediately because they’re losing so badly,” Trump said. He added that the US was “winning tremendously” and had “total control of the Hormuz strait.”
The blockade, which Waltz described, is aimed at pressuring Iran to stop its attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has insisted that only diplomacy can resolve its conflict with the US and Israel.
Waltz pointed to the failed US-Iran memorandum of understanding signed in Pakistan in June that laid out a 14-point framework for a negotiated peace. Iran, he said, “immediately violated it by attacking international shipping, in violation of international law, and 146 nations have joined us in condemning Iran for those attacks.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, posted on social media on Sunday that his country’s conditions were clear and that any move toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz was “contingent on these conditions being met.” Araghchi added: “Only a negotiated solution can get them out of this deadlock.”
Araghchi also appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, saying Iran was prepared to resume fighting with the US but had not yet abandoned diplomacy after Trump’s rejection of the peace proposal. “We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed,” Araghchi said. “We stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war. At the same time, we stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, said Iran was ready for talks on its nuclear program and other issues but would not accept “bullying or coercion.” “Iran is not seeking war, but will defend itself against pressure, threats and attacks,” Pezeshkian said, adding that Iran had already agreed that “we’re not supposed to develop nuclear weapons.”
On CNN, Waltz also addressed recent reports that China had assisted Iran in targeting missiles at shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and at US military bases in the region. Waltz did not confirm the leaked intelligence assessments but said Trump had raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping during Xi’s recent state visit to Washington. Trump had also done so “multiple times” previously, including during his visit to China in May, according to Waltz.
“I think we have seen movement in a positive direction,” Waltz said. “President Trump has made it clear it’s unacceptable.” Waltz pointed to readouts of the high-level meeting that said the US and China had “agreed that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon.” “They cannot and should not be tolling, much less attacking, international shipping in an international waterway,” Waltz said. “So I think that was incredibly important to hear from President Xi coming out of the summit.”
Waltz also rejected reporting in the Wall Street Journal that the US would resume bombing Iran after the federal midterm elections in November, pointing to Trump’s comments that Iran was miscalculating. “The president is looking to make not just this generation – but the next generation – safer by not allowing what is essentially a terrorist organization in [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] that is controlling the levers of government and wants to march towards a nuclear weapon,” Waltz said. “We’re not going to let the IRGC have a nuclear weapon, much less hold the world hostage with one.”