Iran Lays Out Seven Conditions for US Talks, Says 'Washington Must Agree First'

Iran has set seven preconditions for any talks with the United States, sharpening an already tense stand-off with Washington as fresh United Nations findings add to the pressure around the wider conflict. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran had sent Washington a “clear and unambiguous” message. He did not spell out the seven conditions in the post.

Rezaei announced the position in a post on X and said Iran had “announced seven conditions for starting any negotiations with the US government.” He also wrote: “Tehran’s message is clear and unambiguous; if Washington wants to escape the quagmire it has created for itself and avoid getting further entangled in it, it has no choice but to accept Iran’s rights and conditions.”

The message comes as Tehran and Washington remain locked in a broader dispute over the conflict and its conduct. Reuters reported on September 17 that a UN fact-finding mission said it had reasonable grounds to believe the United States carried out two military strikes in Iran in February and that the attacks amounted to war crimes.

Rezaei’s Conditions

Rezaei later spelt out the terms in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera.

He said: “The respected Qatari government, as well as the respected Pakistani government, are currently engaged in continuous consultations with us. There are ongoing contacts and meetings. We have informed them of our conditions – and the Americans themselves are aware of our conditions as well… and we are waiting for the Americans to accept and implement them.”

He then listed the demands in fuller detail. “Our conditions include the release of our frozen assets. Secondly, they must announce an end to the war on all fronts – refrain from interfering in our internal affairs, stop cooperating with opponents of our revolution, halt any form of aggression against our territory, and lift the naval blockade.”

His position was explicit. “America must implement our conditions first, and only then can negotiations follow.”

Nuclear And Regional Stance

Rezaei also linked diplomacy to Iran’s nuclear position.

He said: “We remain committed to the fatwa of our martyred Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini], and our position has not changed to this day, but we do not know what will happen in the future… We are now considering whether or not we will withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. This depends on America’s conduct.”

On the regional conflict, he added: “We genuinely want to end the war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen… if they also ask for our help, we are fully prepared to help achieve peace between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.”

Rezaei also warned of a military response if hostilities deepen. “We have fully prepared ourselves to fight a decisive war. The weak points of the American military are now fully known to us… We recently tested an anti-warship missile, that is, we fired a missile that exploded near the aircraft carrier there and split into 80 explosive warheads.” He added: “We are serious about defending ourselves. This time, if war begins, we will strike, more severely, all the American air bases from which those planes take off.”

War And UN Findings

The UN findings have raised the stakes further.

Reuters reported that the mission also examined US conduct during the conflict and the Iranian government’s response to nationwide unrest that began in late December.

The investigators said there were reasonable grounds to believe US forces hit Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab. Iranian authorities said more than 150 people were killed, including around 120 schoolchildren. The mission found the strike was indiscriminate, caused civilian deaths and damage to civilian infrastructure, and met the threshold for a war crime under international law.

The report described the school as a clearly identifiable civilian object, and investigators found no evidence that it was being used for military purposes. They also said the US had not updated its targeting databases with information on the school and had not confirmed it was a military objective.

The mission reached a similar conclusion on a strike on a sports centre in Lamerd. Reuters reported that the attack damaged nearby residential buildings and a school and killed or injured 22 civilians. The mission said that strike too was indiscriminate and therefore a war crime.

The White House rejected the findings. Anna Kelly said the UN Human Rights Council had “accomplished nothing for human rights” and claimed Iran was the only party in the current conflict that had committed war crimes. Reuters reported that US officials have previously said military operations follow the law of armed conflict.

The UN probe also looked at Iran’s response to protests that started in late December. It said authorities mounted a broad and organised assault on civilians, with unlawful killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances and tight limits on free expression.

The investigators said they could not independently verify the death toll. But they said the toll was likely far higher than the official figures cited by Iranian authorities, which put the number killed at 3,038 and the injured at 25,000.