US President Donald Trump said he was willing to speak with Iran's new leadership, but a senior Iranian official publicly rejected negotiations with Washington, leaving the immediate prospects for diplomacy unclear as military strikes continued.
Trump said in an interview that Iranian representatives wanted to talk and that he had agreed to do so. A senior White House official later qualified the timing, saying any conversation would happen eventually and that the US bombing campaign, called Operation Epic Fury by Washington, was continuing in the meantime. No meeting date, participants or negotiating framework was announced in the supplied evidence.
Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, offered a direct contradiction. Responding to reporting that Tehran might be interested in resuming contacts, he wrote on X that Iran would not negotiate with the United States. WION also reported Larijani's rejection while noting that Iran's foreign minister had signaled openness to diplomacy, illustrating that public messages from Iranian officials were not uniform.
The exchange came one day after US and Israeli strikes on Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in Israeli airstrikes, along with other senior Iranian figures, according to the supplied CBS News report. His death created uncertainty about succession after a tenure that began in 1989. No clear replacement had emerged in the evidence available for this report.
Washington and Tehran had held weeks of talks over Iran's nuclear program before the attacks. US officials had pressed Iran to abandon its nuclear program and discuss its missile capabilities and support for regional proxy groups. Trump argued that Tehran had waited too long to reach an agreement and said some of the officials involved in earlier negotiations had since been killed. Those comments reflected the US president's account rather than a mutually confirmed diplomatic record.
The gap between Trump's claim and Larijani's denial could reflect competing positions within Iran, wartime signaling or a disagreement over what qualifies as negotiation. The supplied sources do not establish that a formal Iranian offer was made, and they provide no direct documentation of contacts between the two governments.
The contradiction matters because continued military operations were unfolding alongside public references to diplomacy. A willingness to communicate in principle does not itself establish a ceasefire or a route to renewed nuclear talks. As of the event date, the strongest supported conclusion was that Trump had declared himself open to contact while a top Iranian security official had ruled it out publicly, with neither side announcing a confirmed negotiating process. The statements created expectations without confirming any direct channel.
