Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that he had met with Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei approximately a month ago for several hours and that Khamenei was "completely" healthy and was giving directions to the Iranian leadership in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier, aired on Thursday evening.
"The implementation of the policies is in the hands of the administration and the government, but the consultations and the directions come from there [Khamenei]," Pezeshkian said.
Khamenei has not been seen publicly since the start of the war, when he succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as supreme leader following Ali Khamenei's assassination.
Pezeshkian previously claimed he met with Mojtaba Khamenei in August on Iranian state television, saying the two spoke for seven hours on issues facing Iran, including affordability, unemployment, sanctions, unity, and wartime resilience.
Iran willing to move forward with peace agreement before midterm elections, Pezeshkian says
Pezeshkian said that Iran was willing to make a deal with the US before the US midterm elections in November, and indicated that Iran wanted to return to the Memorandum of Understanding which was signed by both Iran and the US in June before collapsing in July, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
"We do not seek war. Rather, whenever they attack us, we are forced to defend ourselves. We never started a war. But if they wish to keep fighting with us, we will respond strongly, resolutely," Pezeshkian said in his interview.
Iran is also willing to dilute its highly enriched uranium and has never wanted a nuclear weapon, according to Pezeshkian.
"Our martyred esteemed supreme leader, he had announced several times that from a religious decree, it is unholy, it is religiously illegal to have weapons of mass destruction," Pezeshkian said.
When asked why the nuclear material had not been inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and was stored beneath Pickaxe Mountain, Pezeshkian blamed US military activity as the reason the UN watchdog has not been able to conduct an investigation since 2025.