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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has ruled out negotiations with US President Donald Trump’s administration, citing past experiences and vowing to respond forcefully to any threats.
“With such a government there should not be any negotiations as it is neither wise, nor prudent, nor dignified,” Khamenei, the country’s ultimate decision maker, told Iranian military forces on Friday.
He referred to the 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in 2018 before imposing the toughest sanctions on Iran to date. “This is our experience with them,” he said. “We have to use it.”
“If they threaten us, we will threaten them. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours,” Khamenei warned. “If they violate our nation’s security, we will violate theirs . . . This is our duty, as required by Islam.”
Khamenei’s statement comes in the week that Trump signed an executive order to return to his first term’s “maximum pressure” sanctions policy on Iran, but also called for Tehran and Washington to come to a “verified nuclear agreement”.
Diplomats in the reformist government of President Masoud Pezeshkian have suggested in recent weeks that Iran could be open to talks aimed at reassuring the world that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
But Khamenei’s remarks give the clearest indication yet of the top Iranian leader’s stance towards the Trump administration.
Trump has signalled that he wants to take a hardline approach towards Iran’s “axis of resistance”, through which the Islamic Republic has long supported militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Hamas.
But Iran has vowed to maintain its foreign policy and defence priorities, including support for regional proxies and the development of ballistic missiles.
Khamenei criticised Iran’s previous negotiators, saying they had been “too generous and compromised too much” during past diplomatic efforts.
“They negotiated, smiled, shook hands, and made friends,” he said, but the US was “not even committed to that and violated the accord”.
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