Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian on March 30 publicly rejected direct talks with Washington on Tehran’s nuclear programme, proposed in a letter from US President Donald Trump earlier this month.
“While the possibility of direct talks between the two sides was rejected in this response, it was emphasised that the path for indirect talks remains open,” Pezeshkian said in a televised address, adding that the US “must prove that it is trustworthy”.
He added that Iran has never avoided negotiations and accused the US of failing to honour its past commitments, including withdrawing from the nuclear deal during Trump’s first term in 2018.
This is Tehran’s first official response to US President Donald Trump’s letter to the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. That letter spoke of a two-month deadline for a new nuclear agreement. However, it is unclear from when the term is counted from.
The agreement, which included curtailing Iran’s nuclear programme, was negotiated by several countries (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China) and approved by a UN Security Council resolution in 2015. In 2018, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement based on intelligence about the development of Iran’s nuclear programme, and Tehran’s indirect talks with Washington have been inconclusive since then. In his second term, Trump claimed Iran “will have to do something” because it “can’t have nuclear weapons.”
During Joe Biden’s presidency, which came after Trump’s first term, Iran’s nuclear programme has, as Axios noted, “advanced significantly”. In late December 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had ramped up production of uranium enriched to 60 per cent (uranium enriched to 90 per cent or higher is needed to make nuclear weapons). Iran is seeking to lift the sanctions imposed on it and to this end has recently resumed discussions with EU countries on its nuclear programme.