In a speech in Tehran's Azadi Square to a crowd waving Iranian flags on the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, President Massoud Pezeshkian warned that his country would not give in to "excessive demands" from the United States over its nuclear program.

Published on: 02/11/2026 - 2:33 p.m.

While Iranian power is weakened by a recent wave of protests, Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian warned, Wednesday February 11, that Iran would not give in to "excessive demands" from the United States on its nuclear program, during the commemorations of the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In a speech in Tehran's Azadi ("Freedom") Square, in front of a crowd waving flags of the Islamic Republic, Massoud Pezeshkian affirmed that his country would not give in to American demands or "aggression" from the United States.

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On the eve of this commemoration, Iranians shouted in the evening from their windows in neighborhoods of the capital, “Death to the dictator” and “Death to the Islamic Republic,” according to videos posted on social networks. AFP verified the authenticity of three of them.

Tehran also remains under threat of American military intervention. After the outbreak of demonstrations at the end of December which evolved into a protest movement of unprecedented scale against the government, bloodily repressed at the beginning of January, Donald Trump increased the warnings against him.

The American president receives Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Wednesday. According to the latter, any Iranian-American negotiation must include “the limitation of ballistic missiles and the freezing of support” from Tehran to regional armed groups hostile to Israel, a demand also repeated by the United States.

“You really think you’re scaring us?”

In the capital, supporters of the government marched on Wednesday, surrounded by a large security system, larger than in previous years, noted an AFP journalist. Similar rallies were being held across the country.

"We have been sleeping for 40 years and we wake up with the possibility of war and an attack. Do you really think you are scaring us?" said Yaghoub Ghorbanpour, a doctor, very vindictively to AFP. If "the enemy" negotiates, he believes, "it is because he has understood that he cannot defeat us through war."

The United States and Israel "tried to exploit the economic difficulties that they themselves caused, to plunge Iran into chaos", criticizes Mina, a 43-year-old teacher, who did not wish to give her name, repeating the rhetoric of the government against the protest movement.

In the crowd, slogans proclaim the resistance of “the Iranian nation”. Signs mock Donald Trump and Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah and exiled opposition figure. Replica missiles are also installed on the square.

“No one can touch our missiles”

“No one can touch our missiles,” said the head of diplomacy, Abbas Araghchi, while participating in the parade, according to a video published on his Telegram account.

The evening before, fireworks had already commemorated the official takeover of power by Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini in 1979.

According to the account Sharak Ekbatan, which follows news from a residential area of ​​Tehran on X, authorities sent security forces shouting "God is greatest" after residents began chanting slogans against the government.

After a first session of talks in Oman on February 6, Iran reaffirmed that it only wanted to discuss its nuclear program, and hammered home its right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, while Western countries and Israel accuse it of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Repeating that Iran was not "seeking" nuclear weapons, Massoud Pezeshkian affirmed that he was ready for "any verification" of the peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

“Resolving crises through dialogue”

Gulf diplomacies are working to reduce tensions. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, spoke with the American president about the need to "resolve crises through dialogue", his services said on Wednesday.

The head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, is expected in Qatar, the day after a visit to Oman.

At the same time as this resumption of talks with Washington – for the first time since American strikes on its nuclear installations during the 12-day war launched by Israel in June – Iran is continuing its repression of protesters.

According to the US-based group Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana), at least 6,984 people, including 6,490 protesters, were killed during the peak of protests in early January, and at least 52,623 people have been arrested since.

Also read Exclusive: Iran, the massacred revolt

Among them are members of the reform movement in Iran who had supported Massoud Pezeshkian's electoral campaign in 2024 before distancing themselves.

With AFP

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