Iran’s president said on Sunday the Islamic Republic rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear programme, offering Tehran’s first response to a letter that US President Donald Trump sent to the country’s supreme leader on March 12.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran’s 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 the US from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
In a television interview, Trump offered little detail on what he exactly told the supreme leader in the letter.
“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,’” Trump said in the interview.
In the years since the US withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal, regional tensions have boiled over into attacks at sea and on land.
