Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi has outlined Tehran’s key principles for negotiations, stressing that genuine peace cannot be achieved through pressure, threats, or coercion, in a May 12 posting on X. “True peace cannot be built with a literature of humiliation, threats, and coercive score-settling,” Gharibabadi wrote. “When the party that has directly played a role in the war, siege, sanctions, and threats through brute force rejects Iran’s response solely because it is not a letter of surrender, it becomes clear that the main issue is not peace, but the imposition of political will through the path of threats and pressure.”
Therefore, “The Islamic Republic of Iran has emphasized clear principles: the permanent cessation of war and its non-repetition, compensation for damages, lifting of the siege, removal of illegal sanctions, and respect for Iran’s rights,” Gharibabadi continued. “These are not maximalist demands; they are the minimum requirements of any serious, sustainable arrangement aligned with the United Nations Charter to end a crisis that began with the unlawful resort to force.”