Pezeshkian says Iran ‘no longer trusts talks with Washington’

President Masoud Pezeshkian has told Al Jazeera that Iran no longer trusts negotiations with the United States after previous rounds of talks were followed by attacks and sanctions, as Tehran awaits a response to its latest proposal to end the war.“We have no trust in the American side and do not know on what basis an understanding can be reached with it,” Pezeshkian told the Qatar-based broadcaster in an interview aired on Saturday.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Iran says it awaits US response on seven-day roadmap to end warlist 2 of 3Iran pitches US a seven-day end to the war at UNGAlist 3 of 3US official claims Trump holds all the cards in Iran talksend of listPezeshkian and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visited the US this week for the United Nations gathering of world leaders and proposed a deal that would end fighting in the US-Israel war on Iran and unblock the Strait of Hormuz within seven days.Araghchi told reporters on Friday that initial steps would take four to five days, the Strait of Hormuz would reopen on the sixth day and “on day seven, the talks with the US will be started for the final deal on mutually agreed subjects,” referring to Iran’s nuclear programme.Under the plan, Washington would lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports, waive sanctions on Iranian oil sales, release an estimated $12bn in frozen Iranian assets and observe a ceasefire covering the region, including Lebanon and Yemen.In return, Iran would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas passed before the war, and which has become Tehran’s main point of leverage.Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera that mediators Qatar and Pakistan are conveying Iran’s messages to Washington. He said the negotiations are based on the previous memorandum of understanding (MoU) reached by the two sides in June, and the US must clarify its position on that agreement, which lapsed last month.The war began in late February, when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Blocking Hormuz ‘a natural response’Pezeshkian also denied that Iran was responsible for blocking the Strait of Hormuz, saying the US “closed the routes before us”. He described the closure as “a natural response when routes are cut off to Iran”.He said the crisis could be resolved through negotiations rather than force, and that the waterway would reopen to commercial shipping if talks ended the war.Pezeshkian called the US the aggressor in the conflict, saying Iran “has not attacked any country in 200 years”. He said the US and Israel had dragged regional countries into the war in the belief that the Iranian system “would collapse within days”.“We withstood the American and Israeli attacks, and we will continue to stand firm,” he said, adding that neither the killing of an Iranian commander nor economic pressure had caused Iranians to retreat.He said Israel and the US had attacked Iran from the airspace of Islamic countries, and that Iran targets bases used by US forces in the region because operations against it are launched from them. Tehran seeks nothing outside international law, he said, and responds only when others violate the rules.Pezeshkian also linked the imposition of sanctions on Iran to the tactics used by Israel in its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.“Those who deny Iranians medicine and raw materials are the same people who cut off food and water from Gaza,” he said, adding that anyone who believed Iranians could be targeted through sanctions had “miscalculated”.‘We don’t need a regional policeman’Pezeshkian also said regional security could be achieved through cooperation among the region’s own countries. “We do not need a regional policeman,” he said.He accused the US and Israel of seeking to pit Islamic countries against one another to control the region’s resources. He also said Saudi Arabia is capable of playing a role in uniting the Islamic world.Regarding Yemen, where fighting has escalated between the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels and Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces, he said the actions of the Houthis were not connected to Iran, and that Tehran stands in solidarity with “everyone subjected to injustice”.He urged the Houthis and Saudi Arabia to resolve their differences through dialogue, saying “a brother should not fight his brother,” and offered Iran’s help in ending the dispute. “We will not be warmongers,” he said.‘Unity and cohesion’On domestic politics, Pezeshkian accused Iran’s “enemies” of trying to stir disagreements among Iranian officials, insisting the country is witnessing “unprecedented unity and cohesion”.He said he had met twice with Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who has not appeared in public since the war began, including one meeting that lasted seven hours and covered pivotal issues. He pledged to overcome what he called “accumulated imbalances in Iran’s internal conditions”.The US and Israel want to stop Iran from becoming self-reliant, he said, “but we will invest in our people”.