The supreme leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the idea of negotiations with the US about his nuclear program because Tehran confirmed that he received a letter from President Donald Trump.
Last week Trump said that the letter suggested conversations about a deal that would prevent Iran to acquire nuclear weapons and prevent possible military action.
Although Khamenei said he had not seen the letter delivered by an official from the United Arab Emirates, he rejected it as a “deception of public opinion”.
“If we know they won’t honor it, what is the point of negotiating?” He asked, referring to Trump’s decision to leave the Iranian Nuclear deal of 2015 during his first term.
He warned that Iran would take revenge in the case of strikes at his nuclear facilities.
“Iran is not looking for war, but if the Americans or their agents take a wrong step, our reaction will be decisive and certain, and the one who will suffer the most damage is America,” he said.
The supreme leader, who has the last word about all state affairs, also repeated that Iran was “not interested in nuclear weapons”.
Ten years ago, the country had agreed a historic deal with six world powers – China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the US – to limit its nuclear activities and monitoring by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in exchange for sanctions.
However, Trump unilaterally pulled the US from the agreement in 2018 and recovered paralyzing US economic sanctions. He labeled the “The worst deal in history” and said it did too little to stop the potential path of Iran to build a nuclear bomb.
Iran reacted by increasingly violating the conditions of the deal, in particular those who limit the production of enriched uranium, that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, but also to build nuclear weapons.
The IAEA said last month that Iran had stored almost 275 kg (606 lb) uranium to enriched to 60% purity, which is close to arms quality. That would be theoretical enough, if enriched to 90%, for six nuclear bombs.
Both the US and Israel have warned that they will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Israel has threatened to hit Iranian nuclear facilities if necessary.
Last year Israel said it was a part of Iran’s nuclear program during strikes that it carried out in response to an Iranian rocket attack.
In a TV interview that was broadcast last Friday, Trump said: “There are two ways in which Iran can be treated: soldier, or you make a deal. I would rather close a deal because I am not looking to hurt Iran. These are great people.”
“I wrote them a letter with the text:” I hope you will negotiate “, because if we have to go in a soldier, it will be a terrible for them,” he added.
The White House has not given any details about the content of the letter, of which Iran said he was being handed over to Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araqchi by Presidential adviser of the VAE, Anwar Gargash.
Although the supreme leader rejected the idea of negotiations with the US, Iran’s mission to the UN told the UN in a statement on Sunday that it could consider “if the goal is … to tackle concerning a possible militarization of Iran’s nuclear program”.
Araqchi also said on Wednesday that nuclear conversations with the UK, France and Germany were “underway”, while the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that China, Russia and Iran would discuss the “Iranian nuclear issue” during a trilateral meeting in Beijing on Friday.
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