Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has shut the door on President Donald Trump’s push for nuclear deal talks between the two nations, saying it is only a means for the U.S. to place new demands on his country.
Khamenei shared his thoughts in a statement on Saturday, just days after Trump said that he penned him a letter, requesting the two meet to hammer out a new nuclear deal.
“Some coercive governments insist on negotiations. Such negotiations aren’t aimed at solving issues. Their aim is to exert their dominance and impose what they want,” Khamenei said in the statement. “For coercive governments, negotiations are a means to impose new demands. Iran will definitely not fulfill these new demands.”
While appearing on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump shared his intent to meet with Khamenei and discuss the nuclear deal.
“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 a clip from Sunday’s show that was shared on Thursday.
On Saturday, Khamenei also shared that, without directly calling out the U.S., “they make new demands regarding the country’s defense capabilities & int’l. capabilities, telling us not to do this, not to meet that person, not to go there, not to produce this, and to limit the range of our missiles to a certain extent.”
“How could anyone accept such things,” he added, without saying if he obtained Trump’s letter.
Tehran claims that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful, as it continues to enrich its uranium to levels near capable of a nuclear weapon. Iran has said it only wants to develop the atomic bomb to protect itself if the country is “threatened.”
However, Trump restated his opposition to this in a post to social media on Wednesday, saying he wants to reach a new deal with Iran and that “reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens” are “GREATLY EXAGGERATED.”
“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social. “We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed. God Bless the Middle East!”