Trump says he sent letter to Iran’s leader urging nuclear talks
President Donald Trump wrote this week to Iran’s leadership urging the country to negotiate a new nuclear deal, days after it emerged that Tehran’s atomic activities have surged.
“I’ve written them a letter saying I hope you negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump told Fox’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Friday, when asked if he had written to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Trump said that while he isn’t ruling out a military intervention, he would “rather negotiate a deal.”
“I’m not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily,” the president said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said this week the U.S. and Iran should begin talks over Tehran’s nuclear activities. Monitors from the United Nations watchdog have warned that the Islamic Republic’s inventory of uranium enriched just below weapons grade has swelled by more than half since Trump won the presidential election, raising fears about its military potential.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday that it “hadn’t yet received such a letter,” according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. Earlier Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated Khamenei’s opposition to U.S. talks while Trump continues to impose sanctions on Tehran, Agence France Presse reported.
Trump’s use of a letter mirrors the strategy of former U.S. President Barack Obama, whose correspondence with Khamenei helped jumpstart negotiations ultimately yielding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 deal that traded sanctions relief for limits on Iran’s nuclear program. Trump also traded letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term as part of a bid to convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
Maximum pressure
Trump abandoned the Obama-era accord during his first term that ended in 2021 because he wasn’t satisfied with its terms. He instead started a so-called maximum-pressure policy against Iran, triggering an economic crisis, and raised fears the two countries were close to war after he ordered a drone strike that killed a top Iranian general.
Iran responded with reciprocal attacks on a U.S. base in Iraq and by ramping up nuclear activity. The country developed a much closer alliance with Russia, providing it military support for the invasion of Ukraine.
Trump has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to assist in communicating with Iran about the nuclear issue, people familiar with the situation said earlier this month.
While Trump said last month he’s open to a new Iran agreement, he’s also pledged to reinvigorate sanctions aimed at strangling the country’s oil exports. Khamenei has rejected talks as long as the U.S. maintains its maximum-pressure campaign against the Iranian economy.
On Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. would ramp up sanctions on Iran, adding that the U.S. will “shut down” the country’s oil sector using “pre-determined benchmarks and timelines.”
“Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy,” he told the Economic Club of New York.