After years of deadlock and growing distrust, the United States and Iran are once again preparing to talk — but they’re not exactly on the same page.
On Saturday, both sides are expected to engage in discussions in the Sultanate of Oman, in a fresh attempt to revive stalled talks over Iran’s rapidly progressing nuclear programme.
But even before the meeting begins, there’s already disagreement on how the talks will actually happen.
US President
Donald Trump has insisted the negotiations will be direct. On the other hand, Iran’s foreign minister has made it clear that the talks will remain indirect and go through a mediator.
It may seem like a minor detail, but it highlights the underlying tension. Indirect talks haven’t gone anywhere since 2018 — the year Trump pulled the US out of the landmark nuclear deal with world powers during his first term.
Since then, Trump has reinstated tough sanctions on Iran as part of his
“maximum pressure” campaign. He’s also floated the idea of military action once again — even as he expressed hope that a new deal could be worked out. As part of that push, he wrote a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei, however, hasn’t softened his stance. In response to the renewed threats, he warned that Iran would retaliate against any attack with one of its own.
Here’s a closer look at the letter, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and the long-running tensions that have shaped US-Iran relations since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Why did Trump write the letter?
Trump sent the letter to
Ayatollah Khamenei on March 5, and confirmed it the very next day in a television interview.
“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,’” he said.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has been ramping up pressure on Tehran, tightening sanctions while hinting that a US or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites remains on the table.
This isn’t the first time Trump has reached out. A letter he sent during his first term was met with a sharp response from Khamenei.
Still, Trump’s letter-writing approach has worked before, at least in opening doors. His earlier correspondence with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un led to historic face-to-face meetings. Though those summits didn’t lead to any agreement on curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons or its long-range missile programme.
How has Iran reacted?
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected direct negotiations with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
“We don’t av[oid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian said in televised remarks during a Cabinet meeting. “They must prove that they can build trust.”
Khamenei seemingly reacted to comments by Trump renewing his threat of military action.
“They threaten to commit acts of mischief, but we are not entirely certain that such actions will take place,” the supreme leader said. “We do not consider it highly likely that trouble will come from the outside. However, if it does, they will undoubtedly face a strong retaliatory strike.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei went further.
“An open threat of ‘bombing’ by a Head of State against Iran is a shocking affront to the very essence of International Peace and Security,” he wrote on the social platform X. “Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The US can choose the course…; and concede to CONSEQUENCES.”
Adding to the rising tensions, Iran’s state-run newspaper, the Tehran Times, reported—without naming sources—that the country has positioned missiles capable of striking US-linked targets. This comes as the US has stationed stealth B-2 bombers in Diego Garcia, within striking distance of Iran and Yemen, where American forces have intensified bombing operations against Houthi rebels since March 15.
Why is Iran’s nuclear program a concern for the West?
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes. Yet, in recent years, the rhetoric from its officials has become increasingly pointed, with some openly hinting at the possibility of pursuing nuclear weapons.
Tehran is now enriching uranium to 60 per cent purity—just shy of weapons-grade levels—making it the only country without an active nuclear weapons programme to reach such a threshold.
Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was only allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67 per cent and keep a stockpile capped at 300 kilograms (661 pounds). However, the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) revealed that Iran’s stockpile has now ballooned to 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds), with a portion of it enriched to 60 per cent.
US intelligence agencies believe that Iran hasn’t yet launched a formal weapons programme, but they note that the country has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said in a televised interview that while Iran has the technical ability to build nuclear arms, it has no plans to do so and remains cooperative with IAEA inspections. However, he said if the US or Israel were to attack Iran over the issue, the country would have no choice but to move toward nuclear weapon development.
“If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” Larijani said.
Why are relations so bad between Iran and the US?
Decades ago, Iran was one of America’s closest allies in West Asia. Under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Tehran not only bought advanced US military equipment but also allowed CIA technicians to operate secret listening posts to monitor the Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.
But everything changed in 1979.
In January of that year, the shah—gravely ill with cancer—fled the country amid a wave of massive protests. Soon after, the Islamic Revolution took hold, led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who established the theocratic regime that still rules Iran today.
Later that same year, Iranian university students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, demanding the shah’s extradition. The incident triggered the infamous 444-day hostage crisis and led to a complete breakdown in diplomatic ties between the two nations.
During the bloody Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the United States backed Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The period also saw the “Tanker War,” where the US launched a major one-day naval assault that severely damaged Iran’s fleet. Tensions escalated further when an American warship shot down an Iranian commercial airliner.
Since then, relations between Washington and Tehran have swung between enmity and grudging diplomacy. Ties reached their most promising point in 2015, when Iran struck a nuclear deal with world powers. But in 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the US from the agreement, reigniting long-standing animosities that continue to this day.
With input from AP
