Khamenei rejects US nuclear talks as Iran keeps up hard line

# Khamenei rejects US nuclear talks as Iran keeps up hard line

*Event date: 2025-03-12*

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rejected the idea of negotiations with the US over Iran's nuclear programme, sharpening a dispute that has again put diplomacy, sanctions and military threats at the centre of the standoff between Tehran and Washington.

Khamenei said he had not seen a letter from Donald Trump that was delivered by a United Arab Emirates official, but dismissed the president's outreach as a "deception of public opinion", according to the BBC report. He argued that there was no point in talking to Washington because the US had abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement in Trump's first term. Khamenei also warned that Iran would retaliate if its nuclear facilities were struck.

At the same time, he reiterated a line Tehran has repeated for years: that Iran is "not interested in nuclear weapons". That statement matters because the wider crisis is being driven by competing claims about whether Iran is moving toward weaponisation, and by US and Israeli warnings that they will not allow Tehran to obtain a bomb.

The BBC report said Trump told Fox News he preferred a deal over military action, while also presenting those as the two available paths. The White House did not disclose the contents of the letter, but Iran said it was handed to Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi by UAE presidential adviser Anwar Gargash.

The dispute sits on top of a deteriorating nuclear picture. The BBC said the International Atomic Energy Agency reported last month that Iran had stockpiled almost 275kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity, close to weapons grade. That level would theoretically be enough, if further enriched to 90%, for several nuclear bombs. Iran has already been breaching the limits of the 2015 deal since the US withdrawal in 2018.

Khamenei's remarks also came against a backdrop of military warning and diplomatic manoeuvring. The BBC report noted that both the US and Israel have said they will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. Israel has threatened strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, and last year said it hit part of Iran's nuclear programme during retaliatory attacks.

Even so, the diplomatic channel has not closed completely. Iran's mission to the UN said in a statement on Sunday that it might consider talks if the objective were to address concerns about any possible militarisation of the programme. Araqchi also said on Wednesday that nuclear talks with Britain, France and Germany were ongoing, and China said it would hold a trilateral meeting with Russia and Iran on the issue in Beijing.

For now, though, Khamenei's intervention suggests Tehran is not ready to trade its familiar position for a fresh US-led process. The result is another cycle in a long-running confrontation: Washington says it wants to stop Iran from moving toward a bomb, Tehran says it is not seeking one, and both sides keep preparing for the possibility that diplomacy fails.