Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has once again rejected direct negotiations over the country’s nuclear programme with the government of US President Donald Trump.
“We responded to the US president’s letter via Oman and rejected the option of direct talks, but we are open to indirect negotiations,” Pezeshkian said at a Cabinet meeting in Tehran on Sunday.
Iran is not opposed to negotiations, he said, but the United States must first correct its past “misconduct” and create a new basis for trust, the ISNA news agency cited Pezeshkian as saying.
In a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Trump said Tehran must either negotiate a new nuclear deal or face a military solution.
Khamenei firmly rejected this, saying that Iran is only willing to negotiate indirectly through third countries.
In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Vienna nuclear deal which was intended to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions. Since then, Tehran has also stopped adhering to the terms of the agreement.
Iran is facing the worst economic crisis in its history as a result of international sanctions. According to observers, only direct negotiations between the oil-rich state and the Trump administration could lead to a lifting of the sanctions.
Tehran is also facing political troubles, with its self-proclaimed “axis of resistance” against its arch-enemy Israel – consisting of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Houthi rebels in Yemen – significantly weakened.