Tehran, Iran – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called on the United States to respect Iran as the two countries look forward to holding a new round of nuclear talks next week following mediation discussions in Oman.

“Our reasoning on nuclear issues is based on rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” he wrote in a post on X on Sunday. “The Iranian nation always responds to respect with respect, but cannot bear the language of force.”

Pezeshkian called Friday’s indirect talks in Oman a “step forward” and said his government favored dialogue.

Iranian officials stress sovereignty and independence and express desire to gain Nuclear negotiations only, while rejecting the U.S. military buildup in the region.

Speaking at a forum hosted by Tehran’s Foreign Ministry, Abbas Araghchi, the country’s top diplomat, noted that the Islamic Republic has emphasized independence since the 1979 revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

“Before the revolution, the people did not believe that their institutions had real independence,” Araghchi said.

The news comes as the anniversary of the revolution approaches on Wednesday. State-organized demonstrations Plans have been made across the country. Iranian authorities have displayed military equipment, including ballistic missiles, during rallies in previous years.

Araghchi told an event in the capital that Iran was unwilling to give up civilian nuclear enrichment, even if it would lead to more military attacks by the United States and Israel, “because no one has the right to tell us what we must have and what we must not have.”

However, the diplomat added that he told U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner “There is no alternative but to negotiate,” he said in Muscat on Friday. He said that China and Russia have also been informed of the contents of the talks.

“Fear is a deadly poison in this situation,” Araghchi said of Washington’s buildup of what U.S. President Donald Trump called a “beautiful fleet” near Iranian waters.

‘Pushing the region back a few years’

Iran’s top military commander issued new warning on Sunday The entire region will be plunged into conflict If Iran is attacked.

“While we are prepared, we really do not want to see a regional war break out,” Maj. Gen. Abdelrahim Mousavi told a gathering of air force and air defense commanders and personnel.

Speaking of Israel, he said: “Although the aggressor will be the target of the flames of regional war, this will set back progress and development in the region for years, and the consequences will be borne by American militants and the Zionist regime.”

Mousavi said Iran “has the strength and preparations needed for a protracted war with the United States.”

But many ordinary Iranians are stranded and have little hope that talks with the United States will yield results, including for the country’s economic development. severe economic recession.

“I was 20 years old when the first negotiations with the West about Iran’s nuclear program took place some 23 years ago,” Saman, who works for a small private investment firm in Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

“Our best days are behind us. But what is even sadder is that some of the young people who were born at the beginning of the negotiations and who had so many hopes and dreams were killed in the protests last month.”

“They never came back”

Iran is going through tense times and the threat of a large-scale U.S. military strike. But the Islamic Republic has yet to overcome the anti-government protests that have rocked the country, denouncing the collapse of its currency, soaring prices and economic hardship.

State television continues to air testimonials from Iranians arrested at protests across the country, many of whom the state accuses of serving the interests of foreign powers.

In a report broadcast late Saturday, a woman and multiple men whose faces were blurred and handcuffed were seen saying they were led by a man who allegedly received weapons and money from Mossad agents in Erbil, neighboring Iraq.

“He just wanted more people to die; he shot everyone,” one man who pleaded guilty said of what allegedly happened during the unrest in Tehran’s Pars district east of the capital, backing the state’s contention that “terrorists” were responsible for all the deaths.

Iranian authorities accuse the United States, Israel and European countries of inciting protests.

But international rights groups and foreign opposition groups have accused the country’s military of being behind the unprecedented killings during the protests, which took place mainly on the night of January 8-9.

The Iranian government claims 3,117 people killedbut the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said nearly 7,000 deaths had been recorded and more than 11,600 cases were being investigated. Mati Sato, the United Nations special rapporteur on Iran, said that despite information leaking out, more than 20,000 people have been killed. Strict Internet filtering.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the figures.

Iran’s judiciary late on Saturday dismissed the charges following widespread reports that dozens of medics had been arrested for treating injured protesters and were still being held in harsh conditions. It claimed that only a “limited number of medical personnel were arrested for their involvement in the riots and their role at the scene”.

According to reports, among the tens of thousands of people arrested during and after the nationwide protests, there were also a large number of school and university students. The Ministry of Education claimed last week that it did not know how many schoolchildren had been arrested but could confirm that all had been released.

The four-minute video below, titled “200 Empty Desks,” was released by the Coordination Council of Iran’s Teachers’ Association on Sunday and shows schoolchildren and teenagers confirmed to have been killed during the protests. Many were accompanied by their parents when they were killed.

A month after the killings, countless families are grieving and continue to post videos online honoring their loved ones.

An Instagram message calling on the international community to keep talking about the Iranian people has now been retweeted more than 1.5 million times.

“One month ago today, thousands of people woke up unknowingly, ate breakfast for the last time, and kissed their mothers for the last time without knowing it,” the message read. “The last time they lived, they never came back.”