Iran’s Pezeshkian says Tehran seeks peace, but will not bow to coercion

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DUBAI (Reuters) -Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Friday that Iran sought peace, but would not be coerced into abandoning its nuclear and missile programmes, state media reported.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Iran had been asking if U.S. sanctions against the country could be lifted. 

“We are willing to hold talks under international frameworks, but not if they say you can’t have a (nuclear) science, or the right to defend yourself (with missiles) or else we will bomb you,” Pezeshkian said.

Iran has repeatedly dismissed the possibility of negotiations over its defensive capabilities, including its missile programme, and the idea of abandoning all enrichment of uranium on its soil.

“We want to live in this world in peace and security, but not be humiliated, and it is not acceptable that they impose upon us whatever they want and we just serve them,” Pezeshkian said.

“They supply arms to Israel while they tell us not to have missiles for defence, then they bomb us whenever they want.”

Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks prior to a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June, when U.S. and Israeli forces bombed Iranian missile sites.

Israel sees Iran as an existential threat. But Iran says its ballistic missiles, with a range of up to 2,000 km (1,200 miles), are an important deterrent and retaliatory force against the United States, Israel and other potential regional adversaries. It denies seeking nuclear weapons.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Writing by Ahmed Elimam and Dubai newsroom; Editing by Aidan Lewis, Sharon Singleton and Alex Richardson)