On Sunday, the Iranian president rejected direct negotiations with the United States regarding its nuclear program, offering Tehran’s first response to a letter that President Donald Trump sent to the country’s supreme leader.
President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that Iran’s response, delivered through the Sultanate of Oman, left open the possibility of indirect negotiations with Washington. However, such talks have not progressed since Trump, during his first term, unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Tehran nuclear agreement with world powers in 2018.
In the years since then, regional tensions have erupted into attacks at sea and on land. This was followed by the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where Israel targeted leaders of groups affiliated with Iran. Now, as the United States carries out intense airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, the risk of military action targeting Iran’s nuclear program remains on the table.
“We do not avoid conversations; it is the failure to keep promises that has caused problems for us so far,” Pezeshkian stated in televised remarks during a cabinet meeting. “You must show that you can build trust.”
The Department of State, in response to Pezeshkian, declared that “President Trump has been very clear: the United States cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
“The president expressed his willingness to talk about an agreement with Iran,” he added. “If the Iranian regime does not want an agreement, the president has been very clear that he will consider other options, which will be very bad for Iran.”
Before Pezeshkian’s statements, Trump declared that he was considering military actions and tariffs if Iran does not accept an agreement.
“If they do not accept an agreement, there will be bombings and they will be bombings like they have never seen,” Trump said in comments broadcast on Sunday by NBC News.
That Pezeshkian has announced the decision shows how much Iran has changed since his election half a year ago, after campaigning with the promise of re-establishing communication with the West.
Since Trump’s election and the resumption of his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, the Iranian currency has plummeted. Pezeshkian had left the conversations open until Iran’s Supreme Leader, 85-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, took a tough stance against Trump in February and warned that talks “are not intelligent, wise, or honorable” with his administration. The Iranian president then immediately hardened his own statements about the United States.
Meanwhile, there have been mixed messages coming from Iran. Videos of the Quds Day demonstrations on Friday showed people in the crowds instructing participants to chant only “Death to Israel!” Typically, “Death to America!” could also be heard.
A video of an underground missile base revealed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard also showed its troops stepping on an Israeli flag painted on the ground, although there was no American flag as often seen in such propaganda videos.
However, Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television, published an article last week that included a list of US bases in the Middle East as possible attack targets. The list included Camp Thunder Cove in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where the US has stationed B-2 stealth bombers likely being used in Yemen.
“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 powder keg, igniting the entire region. In such a scenario, their bases and allies will not be safe.”
However, the two recent direct attacks by Tehran on Israel with ballistic missiles and drones caused minimal damage, while Israel responded by destroying Iranian air defense systems.
Iran’s rejection is the latest development in tensions over the nuclear program. Trump’s letter reached Tehran on March 12. Although he announced that he wrote it in a television interview, Trump offered few details about what he actually said to the supreme leader.
“I have written a letter saying, ‘I hope they will go to negotiate because if we have to intervene militarily, it will be something terrible,‘” Trump stated in the interview.
The movement recalled Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his first term, which led to face-to-face meetings but not to agreements to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs or missile program.
The last time Trump tried to send a letter to Jamenei, through the then-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019, the Supreme Leader mocked the effort.
Trump’s letter arrived at the same time as both Israel and the United States have warned that they will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium to levels close to weapons-grade, with a purity of 60%, something only done by nations with atomic weapons.
Iran has long maintained that its program is for peaceful purposes, even as its officials increasingly threaten the possibility of having the bomb. A report in February from the UN nuclear watchdog said that Iran has accelerated its production of uranium close to weapons-grade.
Iran’s reluctance to deal with Trump probably also stems from its order to attack that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020. The United States has said that Iran planned to assassinate Trump because of this before his election this November, something that Tehran denied although officials have threatened it.