“We are not seeking nuclear weapons,” Pezeshkian said in a meeting with foreign diplomats in Tehran, adding that “verifying this issue is an easy task”. On Wednesday, Trump called for a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran, stating that it “cannot have a nuclear weapon”.

The US president had revived his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran the day before, citing suspicions that the country is seeking nuclear weapons capabilities. Iran condemned the policy’s restoration, claiming that continuing to pursue it will result in “failure”.

During his first term, which concluded in 2021, Washington pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal that limited Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for sanctions relief. Tehran remained committed to the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), for a year after Washington withdrew, but then began to backtrack. Efforts to resuscitate the 2015 agreement have since stalled. During Thursday’s discussion, which was carried on television, Pezeshkian pointed to Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s long-standing fatwa, or Islamic edict, barring the use of nuclear weapons. He stated that Iran was not seeking such weapons because “massacring innocent people is not acceptable in the doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran”.