• The US presidential advisor delivers Trump’s letter to Tehran
• Beijing and Kremlin will hold conversations with Iranian officials to discuss the issue
Dubai: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatolá Ali Khamenei, rejected on Wednesday the idea of maintaining negotiations with the United States by a nuclear agreement, since a letter arrived from the president of the United States, Donald Trump, asked for such conversations.
Trump said last week that he had sent a letter to Khamenei proposing nuclear conversations, but also warned that “there are two ways in which Iran can be managed: militarily, or you make an agreement” that prevents Tehán will acquire nuclear weapons.
The letter was delivered to the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Wednesday by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic advisor of the president of the United Arab Emirates.
Khamenei said that negotiating with the Trump administration, who said he has excessive demands, “will harden the node of the sanctions and increase the pressure on Iran.”
In 2018, Trump withdrew the United States from the Tehran Nuclear Agreement in 2015 with the world powers and the reprint of sanctions that have paralyzed Iran’s economy. Tehran reacted a year later by violating the nuclear curbs of the agreement.
While leaving the door open for a nuclear pact with Tehran, Trump has restored the “maximum pressure” campaign that he requested in his first mandate as president to isolate Iran of the global economy and boost their oil exports to zero.
Separately, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that China and Russia will hold conversations with Iranian officials in Beijing on Friday to discuss the Iranian nuclear problem.
Threat of military action ‘reckless’
In response to Trump’s letter that urged the negotiations and warned about the possible military action if Tehran rejected the negotiations, Khamenei said that US threats were “reckless.” “The United States is threatening militarism. In my opinion, this threat is reckless, ”Khamenei said in a meeting with the students. “Iran is able to retaliate and will definitely inflict a blow.”
Khamenei told a group of university students that Trump’s offer for conversations was “a hoax destined to deceive public opinion,” state media reported. “When we know they will not honor him, what is the point of negotiating? Therefore, the invitation to negotiate … is a deception of public opinion, ”said Khamenei, state media. “We sat and negotiated for several years, this same person showed the terminated agreement, completed and signed outside the table and broke it,” he added, referring to Washington’s withdrawal from a 2015 historical nuclear agreement.
‘New and strange’
Iran has officially ruled out direct conversations as they remain sanctions, and Khamenei said that conversations with the United States “will not raise sanctions … and will make the sanctions stricter.” “Regarding nuclear weapons, it is said that we will not let IRO obtain nuclear weapons. If we wanted to make nuclear weapons, the United States could not stop, ”said Khamenei.
“The fact that we do not have nuclear weapons and we do not look for nuclear weapons is because we do not want them ourselves.” Khamenei, who has the last word in state affairs, said I will “were not looking for war, but if someone takes measures, our answer will be decisive and safe”
However, the Uranium stock of Iran enriched up to 60 percent purity, near the level of weapons of approximately 90 %, he jumped, said the International Atomic Energy Agency at the end of last month.
Separate, Araqchi denounced a meeting of the UN Security Council closed on Wednesday on Iran’s nuclear work as a new process that doubts the goodwill of the states that request it. Six of the 15 members of the Council, France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Great Britain and the United States, requested the meeting on the expansion of Iran of their uranium stock near weapons.
Araqchi said that Iran soon would have a fifth round of conversations with France, Great Britain and Germany, parties in the Iran Nuclear Pact in 2015. “Our conversations with the Europeans have been ongo state media
Posted in Dawn, March 13, 2025
