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13-03-2025
TEHRAN: President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want”, Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they (the US) give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want”, state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level, the IAEA has warned.
Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and re-imposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
Last week, US President Donald Trump said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran and sent a letter to its leadership this week suggesting talks with the Islamic Republic, which the West fears is rapidly nearing the capability to make atomic weapons.
“I said I hope you’re going to negotiate, because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran,” Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network broadcast on Friday.
Iran has not yet received the letter, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said on Friday. There was no immediate response from the foreign ministry in Iran, where it is the weekend, to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday that he anticipated movement on the issue very soon.
“We’re down to final strokes with Iran. That’s going to be an interesting time and we’ll see what happens but we’re down to the final moments. Final moments. Can’t let them have a nuclear weapon,” he said in the Oval Office.
Earlier, Iran’s stock of uranium close to weapons grade has jumped since it announced a dramatic acceleration in enrichment in December and there has been no progress on resolving outstanding issues, two reports by the UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday.
The stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the roughly 90% of bomb grade, has been a long-standing concern for Western powers, which say there is no civil justification for enriching uranium to such a high level. Iran says it seeks only peaceful nuclear energy.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration has said it plans to pressure Iran over its nuclear programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said time is running out for diplomacy to impose new restrictions on Iran’s activities.
“The significantly increased production and accumulation of high enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a passage that, unusually, was included in both its quarterly reports on Iran. (Int’l News Desk)
