A senior Iranian conservative figure said the idea of a win-win outcome in negotiations with the United States is fundamentally wrong, even as Iran’s government says it has put forward proposals in talks with Washington.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, a former senior advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader, said the concept of win-win talks with the US was “completely wrong,” according to comments published on Monday by Iran’s Mehr news agency.
“Some officials previously said we should trust the United States and reach an understanding,” Larijani said. “But the experience of the [2015] nuclear deal revealed all these assumptions. The idea of desperation was wrong, the win-win theory turned out to be incorrect, and trust was a complete mistake."
Larijani said those officials believed Iran had no remaining options and that the only solution was to satisfy Washington in order to secure partial sanctions relief.
“They believed all the country’s paths were closed and nothing could be done,” he said. “They thought the only way was to convince the United States to lift part of the sanctions and pay its cost in return, and they called this courage.”
“This is not courage,” Larijani said. “This is a kind of inverted courage. Real courage lies in resistance and attack, not in surrender.”
His comments come as Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said over the weekend that Tehran was ready to pursue negotiations aimed at a fair, win-win outcome on its nuclear program, while ruling out zero uranium enrichment.
Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera on Saturday, Araghchi said Iran was prepared to reach a reassuring agreement on enrichment and to build confidence through realistic negotiations. He said enrichment was a guaranteed right for Iran and would continue, though Tehran was ready to reduce enrichment levels.
