Iran president aide says peace does not mean surrender

A senior aide to Iran’s president said on Tuesday that pursuing peace did not amount to surrender, after President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the foreign minister to restart talks with the United States.

“Not every peace means surrender,” Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, the president’s executive deputy, wrote on X. “No war is good, and not every peace is surrender.”

Earlier, Pezeshkian said on X that he had instructed Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to restart talks with the US in response to a proposal from President Donald Trump and requests from what he called “friendly governments.”

The comments came as reports said Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff were expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday.