Iran President Says Tehran Will Act Immediately If US Honors June Deal
The statement, made at a multilateral summit, signals that Iran views the June memorandum of understanding as still salvageable, setting a public and testable condition for diplomatic re-engagement.
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said Tuesday that Tehran would "immediately" take reciprocal action if the United States returns to commitments outlined in a June memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the conflict between the two countries. The statement was made in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, according to Korea Times.
"I state explicitly that if the United States returns to its commitments under the aforementioned memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take reciprocal action," Pezeshkian said, as quoted by the Korea Times. The venue was the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, a multilateral forum that includes China, Russia, and several Central Asian states.
The June memorandum of understanding that Pezeshkian referenced has not been fully disclosed publicly. The specific terms, enforcement mechanisms, and parties who signed the document have not been confirmed in open-source reporting as of publication. A full public release of the document or an official joint statement from both governments would be required to verify its contents.
Pezeshkian's remarks place responsibility for the breakdown, or the continuation of conflict, on whether Washington chooses to resume compliance with the June agreement. The formulation is conditional and public, meaning it creates a documented diplomatic position that both governments and third-party observers can cite in subsequent negotiations or disputes.
The choice of Bishkek as the venue for this statement is notable. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, founded in 2001, has expanded its membership in recent years and is viewed by analysts as a forum where countries outside Western alliance structures coordinate diplomatic positions. Iran was granted full SCO membership in 2023, according to SCO official records, giving Tehran a regularized platform for multilateral engagement with Eurasian powers.
Iran and the United States have not maintained formal diplomatic relations since 1980, following the Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the US Embassy in Tehran. Indirect negotiations, often conducted through European intermediaries or in multilateral formats, have served as the primary channel for any diplomatic communication between the two governments since that time.
The most significant prior framework governing Iran's nuclear activities and related sanctions was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, concluded in 2015 among Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China. The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 under the Trump administration, which reimposed sanctions. Iran subsequently reduced its compliance with the agreement's nuclear limits, a sequence documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency in its quarterly reports.
Attempts to revive or replace the JCPOA have continued in various forms through successive administrations. Whether the June memorandum of understanding Pezeshkian referenced represents a successor framework, a limited confidence-building measure, or a different category of agreement entirely is not established by available public information.
The US government had not issued a public response to Pezeshkian's Bishkek statement as of publication time. The State Department's official position on the June memorandum, including whether the United States acknowledges its existence, has not been confirmed in open reporting available to this publication.
The practical consequences of any resumed compliance on either side would depend on the document's terms, which remain undisclosed. Observers monitoring the situation would need access to the memorandum's text, or an official joint readout, to assess what specific actions each party would be required to take under a reciprocal return to the agreement.