Iran signals openness to diplomacy as war remains stalled

Iran's president is defending a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding as a potential route out of the nearly six-month-old conflict, even as a senior Iranian security official threatens retaliation against neighboring countries that assist Washington's campaign to pressure Tehran.

President Masoud Pezeshkian said Sunday that the agreement signed by President Donald Trump in June should be used to move the conflict beyond what he described as a state of “neither war nor peace.”

“There is not a single provision in this agreement that amounts to capitulation,” Pezeshkian said in remarks published by Iran's state-run IRNA.

The memorandum established a 60-day deadline for ending the war and reaching an agreement concerning Iran's nuclear program. That deadline expired last week, however, with the two sides still sharply divided, particularly over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping routes.