On this photograph launched by the Iranian Presidency Workplace, President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks throughout a rally commemorating anniversary of 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the late pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and introduced Islamic clerics to energy, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025.
AP/Iranian Presidency Workplace
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AP/Iranian Presidency Workplace
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s president mentioned Sunday that the Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the US over its quickly advancing nuclear program, providing Tehran’s first response to a letter President Donald Trump despatched to the nation’s supreme chief.
President Masoud Pezeshkian mentioned Iran’s response, delivered through the sultanate of Oman, left open the opportunity of oblique negotiations with Washington. Nevertheless, such talks have made no progress since Trump in his first time period unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear cope with world powers in 2018.
Within the years since, regional tensions have boiled over into assaults at sea and on land. Then got here the Israel-Hamas conflict within the Gaza Strip, which noticed Israel goal militant group leaders throughout Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance.” Now, because the U.S. conducts intense airstrikes focusing on the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen, the danger of army motion focusing on Iran’s nuclear program stays on the desk.
“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian mentioned in televised remarks throughout a Cupboard assembly. “They must prove that they can build trust.”
The White Home, the State Division and different officers provided no quick response to the announcement. Nevertheless, Trump mentioned earlier than Pezeshkian’s feedback he was contemplating army motion and secondary tariffs if Iran doesn’t conform to a nuclear deal.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before,” Trump mentioned in a remark aired Sunday by NBC Information.
Iran’s place hardens after Trump’s letter
Having Pezeshkian introduced the choice reveals simply how a lot has modified in Iran since his election half a 12 months in the past after he campaigned on a promise to re-engage with the West.
Since Trump’s election and the resumption of his “maximum pressure” marketing campaign on Tehran, Iran’s rial foreign money has gone right into a freefall. Pezeshkian had left open talks up till Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei got here down onerous on Trump in February and warned talks “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” together with his administration. The Iranian president then instantly toughened his personal remarks on the U.S.
In the meantime, there have been blended messages coming from Iran for weeks. Movies from Quds, or Jerusalem, Day demonstrations on Friday had folks within the crowds instructing members to solely shout: “Death to Israel!” Usually, “Death to America” was additionally heard.
A video of an underground missile base unveiled by Iran’s hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard additionally confirmed its troops stepping on an Israeli flag painted on the bottom — although there was no American flag as usually seen in such propaganda movies.
However Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state tv, printed an article final week that included itemizing U.S. bases within the Center East as doable targets of assault. The record included Camp Thunder Cove on Diego Garcia within the Indian Ocean, the place the U.S. is basing stealth B-2 bombers possible being utilized in Yemen.
“The Americans themselves know how vulnerable they are,” warned Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Friday. “If they violate Iran’s sovereignty, it will be like a spark in a gunpowder depot, setting the entire region ablaze. In such a scenario, their bases and their allies will not be safe.”
Nevertheless, Tehran’s two current direct assaults on Israel with ballistic missiles and drones brought on negligible injury, whereas Israel responded by destroying Iranian air protection programs.
Iran’s rejection is the most recent in tensions over nuclear program
Trump’s letter arrived in Tehran on March 12. Although asserting he wrote it in a tv interview, Trump provided little element on what he precisely informed the supreme chief.
“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,'” Trump mentioned within the interview.
The transfer recalled Trump’s letter-writing to North Korean chief Kim Jong Un in his first time period, which led to face-to-face conferences however no offers to restrict Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program able to reaching the continental U.S.
The final time Trump tried to ship a letter to Khamenei, by way of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019, the supreme chief mocked the hassle.
Trump’s letter got here as each Israel and the US have warned they are going to by no means let Iran purchase a nuclear weapon, resulting in fears of a army confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at close to weapons-grade ranges of 60% purity — one thing solely achieved by atomic-armed nations.
Iran has lengthy maintained its program is for peaceable functions, whilst its officers more and more threaten to pursue the bomb. A report in February, nevertheless, by the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog mentioned Iran has accelerated its manufacturing of close to weapons-grade uranium.
Iran’s reluctance to cope with Trump possible additionally takes root in his ordering the assault that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a Baghdad drone strike in January 2020. The U.S. has mentioned Iran plotted to assassinate Trump over that previous to his election this November, one thing Tehran denied although officers have threatened him.
