Mojtaba Khamenei: Negotiations with US Do Not Mean Accepting Their Views
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has stated that future talks with the United States will be conducted directly, but this does not mean ‘accepting their views’. ‘It is clear that the face-to-face negotiations to be held in the future do not mean accepting the enemy’s point of view,’ Khamenei said in a message read on state television, as reported by AFP on Friday (19/6/2026). This marks his first response to the agreement between Iran and the US that ended the war which broke out in late February.
Earlier, President Masoud Pezeshkian welcomed what he called a ‘historic’ agreement with the United States to end the war. ‘This is a historic document and a message from a strong Iran: peace will be achieved under the umbrella of mutual respect,’ Pezeshkian said in a social media post featuring an image of the agreement document, according to AFP on Thursday (18/6/2026). The document bears the signatures of Pezeshkian, US President Donald Trump, and their mediator, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Trump signed the Iran-US memorandum of understanding (MoU) during a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles following the G7 summit on Wednesday (17/6) evening local time. ‘Just signed it,’ Trump said as he exited the palace, AFP reported on Thursday (18/6/2026). Separately, the Iranian government also confirmed it had signed the agreement to end the war with the US.
‘The text of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding has been finalised with the signatures of the presidents — now it is time to test the implementation of the agreement,’ said Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, as quoted by Iran’s official news agency IRNA. The spokesman warned that implementing the ceasefire agreement with the United States would be more difficult than signing it. He stressed that Tehran has not forgotten the lessons of the war and will closely monitor US compliance. ‘The fact that we have signed an agreement to end the war at this stage does not mean we have forgotten the past or abandoned the valuable lessons we have learned,’ Baqaei said.