Iran Hopes For Nuclear Agreement, President Says

UNITED NATIONS — Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday emphasized his openness to a new international agreement over his country’s nuclear program — a subject that has fueled global tensions for years, risking potentially catastrophic warfare between Iran and the U.S.

Pezeshkian slammed Washington for supporting Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza and attacks elsewhere in the Middle East, including in Lebanon and Iran itself. But he also repeatedly argued Tehran does not want regional conflict and hinted he is attuned to outsiders’ concerns about Iranian activity, from the country’s transparency about its nuclear development to its role in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“In what language do we need to tell the world we do not seek instability?” Pezeshkian asked several times.

The Iranian president made his remarks at a briefing with a select group of journalists amid the annual high-level gathering of world leaders at the United Nations in New York.

The comments came amid growing anxiety over a sweeping regional conflagration that could occur if full-scale war breaks out between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which have been striking each other since the Israel-Hamas war began. On Monday, Israeli strikes killed close to 300 Lebanese people, local authorities said.

And the setting — Pezeshkian’s first major interaction with foreign press, during his first trip to the U.S. since his election in July — sent its own signals about Iran’s desire to engage. The president was flanked by Javad Zarif and Abbas Araghchi, two Iranian officials who helped craft the landmark 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for relief from international sanctions. Pezeshkian has appointed both to high-ranking positions. The Iranians initially said the session would be off-the-record, then seemingly relented in response to pressure from American reporters, first saying the president’s introductory remarks could be quoted and then allowing all his comments to be shared.

The Iran nuclear deal has largely crumbled since former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from it in 2018, making it difficult for world powers to provide Iran the benefits it was promised because of American sanctions. Iran has steadily expanded its nuclear capacity since then. The U.S. assesses Iran now needs less time than ever to be able to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon: just one to two weeks.

But national security officials and arms control experts believe it’s past time for a new settlement to sustain and expand visibility into Iran’s nuclear capabilities through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and prevent escalation.

October 2025 is the expiration date for a vital component of the old nuclear deal, the so-called “snapback” mechanism for restoring U.N. sanctions on Iran if the country breaches its commitments. Analysts say the U.N. Security Council is extremely unlikely to restore the framework given tensions between Western nations and Russia and China, which have veto power on the council.

Asked about restoring nuclear negotiations, Pezeshkian said through a translator: “I do hope we can … reach an agreement.”

“We did not leave the nuclear deal,” the president said earlier in the session, casting blame on Trump for doing so and imposing “illegal, unfair, unjust” sanctions.

He did not directly address multiple queries about whether he believes talks are realistic during the remainder of President Joe Biden’s time in office or if electing Trump to the White House again would be a barrier to negotiations.

Instead, Pezeshkian argued that American officials broadly need to restore faith in their word.

He said Iran upheld its end of the nuclear deal unlike the U.S. — an assessment most outside experts share, though there are some long-standing concerns about Iranian compliance — and pointed to American diplomats saying time and again that a cease-fire deal in Gaza that can boost stability across the Middle East is just a week away.

The lack of trust specifically affects the calculus of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he continued, in a tacit acknowledgment that the unelected Khamenei has the final say on Iran’s policies.

“His Eminence says, ’They say one thing, do another,” Pezeshkian said. The president promoted engagement with the outside world as he sought votes from Iranians, noting that easing sanctions could boost the economy amid popular unrest in the country, and in August, Khamenei gave him a cautious green light to bargain with the U.S. Another power center in the country — the elite Revolutionary Guard — is extremely leery of such talks.

Always extremely sensitive, nuclear diplomacy will be even more complicated given the open question of Israel’s response to the gruesome Oct. 7 attack inside its territory last year by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is close to Iran.

Pezeshkian said Israel is laying “traps” to spark a major war. He repeatedly referenced the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital shortly after Haniyeh attended Pezeskhian’s inauguration; news reports blame the killing on Israel, though the nation has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

Iran will retaliate and has shown through its April attack on Israel that it can target heavily populated civilian centers, though it does not want to do so, Pezeshkian said. “We will give our answer at the appropriate time in the appropriate place,” he added.

“We have been victims of Israeli terrorism,” Iran’s president continued, criticizing the U.S. and its allies for permitting “atrocities” by Israel daily.

He highlighted alleged Israeli abuses in Gaza when asked about Iran’s targeting of dissidents like jailed activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi.

“If you are so heartbroken because of human rights … why are you not screaming at the top of your lungs over what’s been happening for almost a year in Gaza?” Pezeshkian said, arguing Iran acknowledges it has problems and mentioning his inclusion of women and minorities in his administration.

Rights watchdogs have for months warned the U.S. and its allies are losing credibility and influence in advocating for global human rights standards and progress in countries like Iran because of their support for Israel’s Gaza campaign.

Pezeshkian downplayed the impression Iran is focused on organizing global opposition to Washington and its partners — an idea some foreign policy hawks cite to discourage diplomacy with the country.

Western officials have been alarmed over Iran’s yearlong military support for Russia’s attacks in Ukraine.

“We have never approved Russian aggression” there, Pezeskhian said. He even asserted, in contradiction to what U.S. officials say, that Iran has not sent missiles to resupply Russia since he took office.

And in contrast to some Iranian and Iran-aligned figures and many of Iran’s critics, he did not cast moves by regional forces to challenge Israel as coordinated.

Commenting on the Houthi militia in Yemen, which has targeted shipping in what it describes as a pressure campaign to end the Israel-Hamas war, Pezeshkian said their actions were rooted in their own ideology. “It’s not that the Yemenis are sitting waiting for us to tell them, ‘Do this or don’t do this,’” he added.

He repeated Iran’s statements that it did not have prior knowledge of Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault and said of its Lebanese ally: “Hezbollah or any other group that wishes to defend their rights, we defend them.”

He did not address the question of Iranian weapons shipments to Hezbollah, however, and inaccurately claimed they did not begin the tit-for-tat fighting with Israel.

Hopes of diplomacy with Iran have been inching up since Pezeshkian took over after the sudden death in May of hard-line former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Speaking with HuffPost last week, analyst Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy think tank said: “There is this need for a deal between the U.S. and Iran if they want to avoid a broader regional war that I think strategically benefits neither country.”

He identified “low-hanging fruit” like securing greater Iranian cooperation with the IAEA and noted the Biden administration had moved toward allowing Iran to access some frozen funds before the Oct. 7 attack scrambled the situation in the Middle East.

Following the U.S. election in November, after political concerns over an American adversary abate, officials could seek a “less for less” deal rather than a sweeping overall agreement, Toossi said. “My hope is all different sides decide to dial back.”