Iran's top security official, who reportedly received a letter from Vice President JD Vance about resuming peace talks, warned in a resurfaced interview that wartime negotiations with Tehran could drag on for decades, and during which both sides should "be prepared to fight."

Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), now serves as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and acts as a key aide to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. He also helped shape Tehran's military strategy during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

That eight-year conflict ended after Iran's then-supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, accepted a U.N.-brokered cease-fire that he famously likened to drinking from a "poisoned chalice."

"Ceasefire means an unfinished war," Rezaei had said of the war in a 2006 interview with the Iranian publication Baztab. An English translation of the interview is preserved by ongoing U.S.-Iran negotiations or any planned meeting in Qatar, accusing Washington of spreading false claims to ease economic pressure and lower oil prices. He reiterated that Tehran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until its seven conditions were met.

Rezaei has spent more than four decades in Iran's defense establishment. He commanded the IRGC from 1981 to 1997, overseeing operations during the Iran-Iraq War.

In the 2006 Baztab interview, Rezaei also detailed how Iranian leaders distinguished their public rhetoric from military strategy.

Although Khomeini and other Iranian officials called for "fighting till Saddam is toppled" and "until the nuisance is eradicated," Rezaei said Tehran's actual strategy was "fighting up to a victory."

At the time, Iran's battlefield gains, he suggested, were meant to strengthen Tehran's negotiating position rather than achieve total conquest.

"The world did not pay attention to the slogans," Rezaei said in the interview, adding that foreign governments and intelligence agencies focused on Iranian leaders' actions and diplomatic positions.

Rezaei also said Iran had struggled to turn battlefield gains into diplomatic victories because it lacked international alliances and influence at the United Nations.

Rezaei has since faced U.S. sanctions and international scrutiny. The Trump administration first sanctioned him Jan. 10, 2020, under an executive order targeting senior Iranian officials appointed by the supreme leader.

Rezaei had also been accused of involvement in the July 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.

Interpol approved an Argentine request for a Red Notice against Rezaei in 2007 in connection with the bombing.