Man Lightly Wounded as Iranian Missile Barrage Targets Northern Israel
Former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has called for a “comprehensive peace deal” to be concluded with the U.S.
In a guest article for the magazine Foreign Affairs, Zarif on Friday argued that the underlying conflict must be resolved to ensure a comprehensive peace agreement instead of a potentially fragile ceasefire.
Both states, he wrote, should “use this catastrophe as an opportunity to end 47 years of belligerence.”
Together with Israel, the U.S. attacked Iran on February 28. Since then, dozens of leading Iranian military and political figures have been killed, including former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“Prolonged hostility will cause a greater loss of precious lives and irreplaceable resources without actually altering the existing stalemate,” continued Zarif, who served as Iran’s foreign minister from 2013 to 2021.
The war has shown that Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes cannot be halted by military means, he said. In his view, Tehran should, as in the past, offer to curtail its nuclear program and open the Strait of Hormuz. In return, the U.S. would have to lift international sanctions.
Zarif went on to write that economic cooperation was also conceivable and would be beneficial to both countries.
“This war,” he concludes, “horrible as it is, has opened the door for a durable settlement. Iranians may be outraged, but they can push forward knowing that they stood tall in the face of a massive and illegal military onslaught by two nuclear-armed powers.”
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