Iran’s former foreign minister says Tehran should use its “upper hand” in the war to strike a “comprehensive peace deal … to end 47 years of belligerence” with Washington.
“Tehran should use its upper hand not to keep fighting but to declare victory and make a deal that both ends this conflict and prevents the next one,” Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an op-ed for Foreign Affairs.
The peace deal should include restrictions on Iran nuclear capabilities and reopening the global trade artery of the Strait of Hormuz, in exchange for lifting all economic sanctions constraining Iran. Zarif described this as “a deal Washington wouldn’t take before but might accept now.”
With costs climbing across the world and the US becoming more isolated in its war efforts, Iran should use this conflict to seal a “non-aggression pact … in which both countries pledge to not strike each other in the future,” said Zarif, who served as Iran’s foreign minister from 2013 to 2021.
Zarif said Iranian diplomats should “use this catastrophe as an opportunity to end 47 years of belligerence” as “the current conflict, horrible as it is, could make reaching such an agreement easier.”
