Iran could hold direct talks with the United States if Washington demonstrates "in practice" that it is not hostile to the Islamic Republic, President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday. Pezeshkian was responding to a question at a news conference in Tehran on whether Tehran would be open to direct talks with the U.

The Islamic Republic has for years defied Western calls to limit its missile programme. The United States and its allies have more recently accused Iran of transferring ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine,

Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has signalled a renewed openness to resuming nuclear negotiations with western nations and denied that his country had supplied ballistic missiles to Russia since he took office more than six weeks ago.

Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Monday that his government had not transferred any weapons to Russia since it took office in August, after Western powers accused Tehran of delivering ballistic missiles to Moscow in.

Iran’s new reformist president is insisting that Tehran didn’t want to enrich uranium at near-weapons grade levels but had been forced by the U.S. withdrawal from its nuclear deal with world powers.