Masoud Pezeshkian said the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic has ordered an end to the status of “neither war nor peace.”

He said on Monday at a ceremony marking the seventy-second anniversary of the establishment of Iran’s Dairy Industries Company, stressing readiness for negotiations: “We can engage in dialogue with dignity and resolve the matter with dignity.”

Pezeshkian’s claim comes at a time when, since the announcement of Mojtaba Khamenei’s name as the new leader of the Islamic Republic and successor to his father, no voice or image of him has been released, and all meetings, statements, and messages attributed to him have been published only as a single report in the Islamic Republic media.

On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Islamic Republic’s demands unacceptable and some of them unrealistic, but said that Donald Trump prefers a diplomatic solution.