Iran\u2019s president said Sunday that the Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, offering Tehran\u2019s first response to a letter President Donald Trump sent to the country\u2019s supreme leader. <\/p>\n
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran\u2019s 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 America from Tehran\u2019s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. <\/p>\n
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\u2019s self-described \u201cAxis of Resistance.\u201d Now, as the US conducts intense airstrikes targeting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen, the risk of military action targeting Iran\u2019s nuclear program remains on the table. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t avoid talks; it\u2019s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,\u201d Pezeshkian said in televised remarks. \u201cThey must prove that they can build trust.\u201d <\/p>\n
The White House offered no immediate reaction to the announcement. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s letter came as both Israel and the US 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 \u2014 something only done by atomic-armed nations. <\/p>\n
Iran has long maintained that its program is for peaceful purposes, even as its officials increasingly threaten to pursue the bomb. <\/p>\n
Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has consistently said that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. A report in February, however, by the United Nations\u2019 nuclear watchdog said Iran had accelerated its production of near-weapons-grade uranium. <\/p>\n
Trump also ordered the attack that killed Iran\u2019s top general in a Baghdad drone strike in January 2020. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iran\u2019s president said Sunday that the Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program, offering Tehran\u2019s first response to a letter President Donald Trump sent to the country\u2019s supreme leader. President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran\u2019s response, delivered via the sultanate of Oman, left open the possibility of indirect…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}