Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian tour's the country's Atomic Energy Organization in the capital Tehran in a photo released by the agency on November 2, 2025. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP)

Pezeshkian: Iran seeks peace, but won’t give up its nuclear and missile programs

Iranian president says it’s unacceptable that US makes demands and then ‘bombs us whenever they want,’ a day after Trump claimed Tehran asked Washington to lift sanctions

by · The Times of Israel

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Iran sought peace, but would not be coerced into abandoning its nuclear and missile programs, state media reported.

The comments came after US President Donald Trump on Thursday claimed Tehran had asked for US sanctions on Iran to be lifted.

“We are willing to hold talks under international frameworks, but not if they say you can’t have a (nuclear) science, or the right to defend yourself (with missiles) or else we will bomb you,” Pezeshkian said. “We want to live in this world in peace and security, but not be humiliated, and it is not acceptable that they impose upon us whatever they want and we just serve them.”

“They supply arms to Israel while they tell us not to have missiles for defense, then they bomb us whenever they want,” he added, apparently referring to the US, which bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June. On Sunday, Pezeshkian also vowed to rebuild the facilities with “greater strength.”

The war, which began when Israel, on June 13, struck Iran’s military leadership and nuclear and missile facilities, came as Iran and the US were set to hold their sixth round of nuclear talks that commenced in April.

During the talks, which have since been suspended, the US demanded Iran cease all uranium enrichment, which Tehran rejected. While Iran, whose leaders are sworn to destroy Israel, denies seeking nuclear weapons, it has amassed uranium enriched to a level above what is needed for civilian usage, and a short step away from weapons-grade.

Portraits of Iranian military generals and nuclear scientists killed in Israel’s June 13 attack are displayed above a road, as a plume of heavy smoke and fire rise from an oil refinery in southern Tehran, after it was hit in an overnight Israeli strike, on June 15, 2025. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Meanwhile, UN sanctions were reimposed on Iran in September after the expiration of a 2015 nuclear deal. The sanctions followed “maximum pressure” measures that Trump, who withdrew from the deal in 2018, restored against Iran after returning to the White House in January.

On Thursday, Trump claimed Iran had asked if the US could lift its sanctions.

“Iran has been asking if the sanctions could be lifted. Iran has got very heavy US sanctions, and it makes it really hard for them to do what they’d like to be able to do,” Trump told reporters at the White House late on Thursday.

“And I’m open to hearing that, and we’ll see what happens, but I would be open to it,” he added.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had said Monday that cooperation with the United States was impossible as long as Washington continued to support Israel and maintain military bases and interfere in the Middle East.

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.