🔶 Masoud Pezeshkian: The Middle East does not need a regional “gendarm”

🔶 Masoud Pezeshkian: The Middle East does not need a regional “gendarm”

Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, on Saturday, 21 Shahrivar (September 12), on the sidelines of the BRICS countries meeting in New Delhi, the capital of India, and in a meeting with Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, said that the Middle East does not need the United States as a “regional gendarme.”

Pezeshkian also added that Iran is not seeking to continue the war, that it still prioritizes peace, and that it wants sanctions to be lifted.

These remarks come at a time when the Islamic Republic and the United States are engaged in a dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran, since the start of the war with Israel and the United States on February 28, 2026, has declared the Strait of Hormuz “blocked,” and ships passing through this strategic waterway must obtain “permission” from Tehran. However, this move by Iran has been met with opposition from regional countries, the European Union, and the United States.

Continued disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz—through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil was transported before the war—has led to an increase in oil prices, and oil prices this week have risen above 100 dollars per barrel.