Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed calls for negotiations from “bully states,” stating that such demands are not meant to resolve issues but to assert dominance. This comes after US President Donald Trump urged Khamenei to engage in talks over Iran’s nuclear program.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump revealed he had sent a letter to Khamenei, offering two options for handling Iran: military action or a negotiated deal. Trump expressed a preference for diplomacy, stating, “I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran.”
He added, “I said, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,’ and I think they want to get that letter. The alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”
While it’s unclear if Khamenei received the letter, his response, which did not specifically mention Trump, was a clear rejection of such pressure.
“The insistence on the part of some bully states on negotiations is not to resolve issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations,” Khamenei said on Saturday, as reported by Iranian state media.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely not accept their demands,” Khamenei added during a meeting with the heads of the three branches of government in Tehran.
During his first term, Trump pulled the US out of the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran and authorized the strike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Since his return to office, Trump has resumed his “maximum pressure” campaign, aiming to isolate Iran economically and diplomatically.
Trump has previously expressed interest in negotiating a new deal with Iran, but the response from Tehran has been mixed. Last month, Khamenei stated that talks with the United States were “not smart.”
Iran has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Earlier this week, during talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Russia had offered to mediate in nuclear discussions between the US and Iran.
