Iran has rejected direct negotiations with the US in response to Trump's
letter
[March 31, 2025]
By JON GAMBRELL and AMIR VAHDAT
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's president said Sunday that the
Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the United States
over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, offering Tehran's first
response to a letter that U.S. President Donald Trump sent to the
country's supreme leader.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran's response, delivered via the
sultanate of Oman, left open the possibility of indirect negotiations
with Washington. However, such talks have made no progress since Trump
in his first term unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from Tehran's nuclear
deal with world powers in 2018.
In the years since, regional tensions have boiled over into attacks at
sea and on land. Then came the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which
saw Israel target militant group leaders across Iran's self-described
"Axis of Resistance." Now, as the U.S. conducts intense airstrikes
targeting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen, the risk of
military action targeting Iran's nuclear program remains on the table.
“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused
issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian said in televised remarks during a
Cabinet meeting. “They must prove that they can build trust.”
The U.S. State Department, responding to Pezeshkian, said that
“President Trump has been clear: the United States cannot allow Iran to
acquire a nuclear weapon."
“The president expressed his willingness to discuss a deal with Iran,”
it added. "If the Iranian regime does not want a deal, the president is
clear, he will pursue other options, which will be very bad for Iran.”
Trump talked about dealing with Iran while flying from Florida to
Washington on Sunday evening. “We’ll see if we can get something done,”
he told reporters. “And if not, it’s going to be a bad situation.”
“I would prefer a deal to the other alternative which I think everybody
in this plane knows what that is, and that’s never going to be pretty,”
he said.
Iran's position hardens after Trump's letter
Having Pezeshkian announce the decision shows just how much has changed
in Iran, since his election a half-year ago after he campaigned on a
promise to reengage with the West.
Since Trump's election and the resumption of his “maximum pressure”
campaign on Tehran, Iran's rial currency has gone into a freefall.
Pezeshkian had left open discussions up until Iran's 85-year-old Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came down hard on Trump in February and
warned talks “are not intelligent, wise or honorable" with his
administration. The Iranian president then immediately toughened his own
remarks on the U.S.
Meanwhile, there have been mixed messages coming from Iran for weeks.
Videos from Quds, or Jerusalem, Day demonstrations on Friday had people
in the crowds instructing participants to only shout: “Death to Israel!”
Typically, “Death to America” was also heard.
A video of an underground missile base unveiled by Iran's hard-line
paramilitary Revolutionary Guard also showed its troops stepping on an
Israeli flag painted on the ground — though there was no American flag
as often seen in such propaganda videos.
But Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television,
published an article last week that included listing U.S. bases in the
Middle East as possible targets of attack. The list included Camp
Thunder Cove on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. is
basing stealth B-2 bombers likely being used in Yemen.
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In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President
Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a rally commemorating anniversary of
1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the late pro-U.S. Shah Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi and brought Islamic clerics to power, in Tehran, Iran,
Monday, Feb. 10, 2025. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP, file)
“The Americans themselves know how vulnerable they are,” warned
Iranian parliamentary 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.”
However, Tehran's two recent direct attacks on Israel with ballistic
missiles and drones caused negligible damage, while Israel responded
by destroying Iranian air defense systems.
Iran's rejection is the latest in tensions over nuclear program
Trump's letter arrived in Tehran on March 12. Though announcing that
he wrote it in a television interview, Trump offered little detail
on what he exactly told the supreme leader.
“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 said in the interview.
The move recalled Trump’s letter-writing to North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un in his first term, which led to face-to-face meetings, but
no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program
capable of reaching the continental U.S.
The last time that Trump tried to send a letter to Khamenei, through
the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019, the supreme
leader mocked the effort.
Trump’s letter came as both Israel and the United States have warned
they will never let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears
of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at near
weapons-grade levels of 60% purity — something only done by
atomic-armed nations.
Iran has long maintained its program is for peaceful purposes, even
as its officials increasingly threaten to pursue the bomb. A report
in February, however, by the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said that Iran has
accelerated its production of near weapons-grade uranium.
Iran's reluctance to deal with Trump likely also takes root in his
ordering the attack that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a
Baghdad drone strike in January 2020. The U.S. has said Iran plotted
to assassinate Trump over that prior to his election this November,
something Tehran denied though officials have threatened him.
___
Vahdat reported from Tehran, Iran. Associated Press writer Chris
Megerian in Washington contributed.
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