Talks with Iran can only succeed without threats, president says

Peace negotiations with Iran would only succeed without "pressure and threats," Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Friday, amid deadlocked efforts to end months of fighting in the Middle East.

Diplomatic efforts to end the seven-month conflict, which began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February, have been at an impasse since the summer.

The United States and Iran agreed a memorandum of understanding in June that spelled out a framework for ending the conflict, but Iranian attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz prompted a resumption of U.S. military operations.

Recent indirect talks between Washington and Tehran on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly failed to produce a breakthrough.

"Dialogue holds meaning and a chance of success only when based on mutual respect and mutual commitments, and when devoid of pressure and threat," Pezeshkian said at a summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Turkmenistan.

"Negotiation conducted in the shadow of force is not negotiation, it is imposition and coercion," he said, adding that sanctions on Iran would affect "regional trade, connectivity, energy, and order."

Pezeshkian said on Monday that talks with the United States to end the war were worthless and only resulted in renewed attacks.

"With an enemy that everyday resorts to assassination, sanctions, pressure and threats, and that breaks its commitments, negotiations are meaningless," he said.

Washington has in recent weeks dialled back military operations in favour of economic pressure and has not struck Iran since September 1.

The United States and Israel have said the war was necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- a goal Tehran has long denied pursuing.

The focus of negotiations has since shifted to reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping lane for oil from the Gulf that has been effectively shut since the fighting.

Iran has sought to impose its control over the vital shipping lane since the start of the war, striking vessels that attempt to transit without its authorisation.

The U.S. has imposed its own counterblockade of Iranian ports and has also struck vessels it accuses of violating it.

AFP