Kayhan newspaper, overseen by Iran's Supreme Leader, on Monday criticized President Masoud Pezeshkian’s recent comments on negotiations with the United States, accusing him of promoting a narrative in which both dialogue and conflict amount to surrender.
“The other meaning of the president’s view is that either through negotiation we must bow to America’s demands or, in the course of war, give in to them,” the Ali Khamenei-linked paper wrote in a commentary.
“In this view, resistance has the least place—both sides of this dichotomy are submission.” Kayhan asked, “Is the opposite of negotiation war? If we refuse to talk with a country, must we necessarily enter into war with it?”
Kayhan further challenged the president to explain “when America has ever honored its commitments” and what basis exists for talks if Washington has already set the terms in advance.
Speaking in Tehran on Sunday, Pezeshkian dismissed what he called emotional approaches to confrontation and pressed his critics to offer concrete alternatives to engagement.
“No one has said that if I talk (negotiate), it means I’m surrendering… Surrendering is not in our nature at all… I don’t talk, then what do you want to do? Do you want to go to war? Fine, he [Trump] came and struck. Now we go and fix it again, and he will come and strike again. Someone should tell us what we’re supposed to do? These are not issues we should deal with emotionally,” he said.
Pezeshkian said any foreign policy step would be taken only with the approval of Khamenei.
“We will not do anything without the consent and coordination of the Supreme Leader, even if it goes against my own opinion, because I believe in this,” he said. “And once this coordination has been made, it is better that others do not criticize the action. Without coordination, we will not take any action.”
Tasnim, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp-linked news agency, also attacked the president’s framing on Sunday, saying that while his declaration of loyalty to the Supreme Leader’s strategic direction was a positive point, the tone of his remarks risked sending the wrong message to the country's adversaries.
“An enemy hearing these sentences can form no perception other than weakness,” Tasnim wrote.
Portraying dialogue as the only path—and suggesting that without it the other side will come and strike—undermines even the negotiations Pezeshkian supports, the agency argued.
“In such a situation, if the enemy does negotiate, it is doing us a great favor—let alone offering concessions at the table,” Tasnim wrote.
Both outlets stressed that presidential statements are heard abroad before they echo at home, saying that language perceived as hesitant could shape foreign decision-making to Iran’s detriment.
