TEHRAN -- President Masoud Pezeshkian has reaffirmed Iran’s position against negotiating with the U.S. under threats and sanctions. 
“We must have relationships with the world; we do not want to quarrel or fight with anyone, but we also will not bow down in humiliation before anyone,” the president said.
“To say to someone, ‘We give you orders to do this and that, and if you don’t do it, we will do this to you,’ is humiliating,” he went on to say. He also commented on the tense meeting recently between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. “What [Trump] did to that Zelensky is truly shameful.” 
“We will die with dignity, but we will not live in disgrace. If negotiations are conducted with respect and based on mutual interests, we are willing to sit down and talk. However, the language of threats and force is absolutely unacceptable to us,” Pezeshkian stated. 
“I personally will not sit with you, do whatever the hell you want,” he added, addressing Trump. 
“My personal view is to engage in talks with everyone, including the U.S. But when the Eminent Leader said we will not negotiate, I adhere to that decision. We stand by the Leader’s position and will not deviate – he sets the course, and we must follow it,” Pezeshkian affirmed. 
Upon entering office, Trump signed an executive order reinstating his policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. Trump has mainly focused on cracking down on Iranian oil shipments.
Tehran has repeatedly blasted Washington for expressing a willingness to hold nuclear negotiations and, at the same time, resuming a full-fledged economic war against the country.  
“Some bully governments – I really don’t know of any more appropriate term for some foreign figures and leaders than the word bullying – insist on negotiations. Their negotiations are not aimed at solving problems; they aim at domination,” Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said this month.