TEHRAN -- Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Tuesday that accusations against Iran’s peaceful nuclear program are being used as a tool of pressure, and that the United States treats diplomacy merely as a means of dictating its will to others.
Speaking at an event titled “Iran’s Civilizational Encounter with America, Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow,” Baqaei said the Iranian nation, based on its civilizational, cultural and religious heritage, rejects any coercive and top-down interaction.
Iran’s position, he said, is founded on fundamental principles of international law enshrined in the United Nations Charter, including the sovereign equality of states and the right to self-determination—principles that emerged from the heavy experience of two world wars and were not invented by any particular power.
“The United States, by ignoring the fundamental rights of nations with regard to countries such as Cuba and Venezuela, and especially by blatantly violating the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, tramples all international covenants and legal order,” Baqaei said.
He added that the United States, through its continued support for the world’s most glaring examples of violations of the right to self-determination, has itself become the embodiment of this contradiction.
“The Iranian nuclear file was used as the basis for imposing the harshest pressures and constraints against the Iranian nation, as the greatest and most costly lie of the century,” Baqaei said.
He noted that the false accusation, despite the absence of even a single document indicating any deviation from the peaceful path, continues to be repeated as a tool in U.S. foreign policy and in line with the interests of the Zionist regime.
“The United States, in dealing with other countries, has lacked real seriousness in the 
field of diplomacy and regards the concept merely as a tool to impose and dictate its will even to its close partners,” Baqaei said.
This monopolistic approach, he said, has never been accepted by Iran and has led the Iranian nation to the firm conclusion that the hostility of the other side goes beyond the political structure and is inherently tied to Iran’s existence and identity.
He cited statements such as returning Iran to the Stone Age and emphasizing a millennia-old challenge with Iranians as revealing the anti-Iranian character of this strategy.
The “Stone Age” reference was a direct response to President Donald Trump, who declared in an April address to the nation that the United States would “hit them with extremely powerful blows and return them to the Stone Age” within two to three weeks. 
The “millennia-old challenge” remark referred to Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s October speech at the Acropolis in Athens, where he invoked the Greco-Persian Wars of 480 BC—specifically Xerxes’ march on Athens—to frame the current confrontation as a civilizational struggle and labeled the Islamic Republic a “cult of death”.
Baqaei said the Iranian people’s unparalleled resistance in recent months is a continuation of standing against a hostility that did not begin today but dates back to the 1950s.
He cited U.S. interventions and British sanctions against the nationalization of the oil industry—a project repeated with the fabrication of the nuclear file and the portrayal of national capacities as a threat.
He stressed that the main goal of the enemies is to prevent the fruition of the country’s human capital, civilizational heritage and geopolitical position so that Iran does not reach its rightful place.
Baqaei said reliance on past experience and components of national power has meant that not only have scenarios to weaken Iran failed, but the country’s historical authority has been further reproduced and consolidated.