Iran‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran will not negotiate under pressure by a “bullying country”, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to the country’s top authority to negotiate a nuclear deal.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
In a meeting with senior Iranian officials, Khamenei said the aim of Washington’s offer for negotiations was to “impose their own expectations”, Iranian state media reported.
“The insistence of some bully governments on negotiations is not to resolve issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations.”
“Talks for them is a path to have new expectations, it is not only about Iran’s nuclear issue. Iran will definitely not accept their expectations.”
While expressing an openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated a “maximum pressure” campaign that was applied during his first term to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports to zero.
During his first 2017-2021 term as president, Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
After Trump pulled out in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, Iran breached and far surpassed those limits.
U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has said time is running out for diplomacy to impose new restrictions on Iran’s activities, as Tehran continues to accelerate its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade. Tehran insists its nuclear work is solely for peaceful purposes.