Iran: To Negotiate, or Not To Negotiate?

On March 7, during an interview with Fox Business, President Donald J. Trump asserted that he had sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stating: “I hope you’re going to negotiate because it’s going to be a lot better for Iran … If we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing for them … The other alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.” Later that day, while addressing the media from the Oval Office, the president reaffirmed: “We’re down to final strokes with Iran … We can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.” The president’s latest declarations have elicited divergent reactions from Iran, reflecting both internal factionalism within the ruling elite regarding strategic engagement with the United States and a lack of bureaucratic cohesion. 

• March 7: The centrist news agency Iranian Students’ News Agency, citing a statement from the Office of the Permanent Representative of Iran to the United Nations, reported that Iran had not received a letter from President Donald J. Trump. 
• March 7: Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, while attending a session of the Organization of Islamic Countries in Jeddah, stated, as reported by the Iranian Students’ News Agency: 
  • “As long as the Trump administration enacts maximum pressure, Iran will not take part in nuclear negotiations with the United States … Iran’s nuclear program cannot be destroyed by military attacks. This is a technology that we have now achieved and cannot be erased from our minds.” 
• March 7: Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a temporary Tehran Friday prayer leader, was quoted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated Mashregh News during his March 7 sermon:  
  • “Despite the supreme leader saying that negotiations with the United States are neither honorable nor wise, there were those who did not want to believe it. However, when they saw,” the joint press conference between Trump and Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky, “they had to admit that negotiating with the United States is beneath the dignity of the Iranian nation. Negotiating with the United States means humiliation and losing your purity, both of which are intolerable to the Iranian nation.” 
• March 8: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, addressing the heads of the three branches of the government and other senior officials at the start of Ramadan, stated, as quoted on his official website: 
  • “Certain bullying governments, and I can really not find a more suitable phrase when describing certain individuals and heads of state than ‘bullies,’ insist on negotiating, but their aim, rather than resolving problems, is to dominate. They say ‘Let us negotiate so we can impose our wishes on the party sitting opposite us at the table. If the counterpart accepts, perfect. If not, and if the other party leaves the table, we will raise mayhem.’ This is domination.”  
  • “For them, negotiation is a means of making new demands. Their problem is not just the nuclear issue. Now, they talk about the nuclear issue, but they will make new demands, which will certainly not be accepted by Iran. For example, Iran’s defense capabilities, Iran’s power in the region, and the like. They will say: ‘Don’t do this,’ ‘Don’t meet that guy,’ ‘Don’t produce x,’ or ‘The range of your missiles should not be longer than y.’ Can anyone accept this? This is the purpose of negotiations, and they continue calling for negotiations to persuade the public opinion, so” that the Iranian public asks Iranian authorities: If the United States “‘is ready to negotiate, how come you are not willing to negotiate?’ This is not negotiation but domination and imposition on Iran. However, their real objective is not negotiations; they want to impose their will.”  
  • “When facing bullying, there is no other way but resistance.” 
• March 9: Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Qalibaf, addressing the Iranian Parliament, said, as quoted by IRGC-affiliated Mashregh News: 
  • “The behavior of the American president toward other countries shows that his statements are deceptive, and negotiations only serve the purpose of disarming Iran … It is clear that negotiating under the shadow of the sword … will not lead to sanctions relief but to humiliation of the honorable Iranian nation.” 
• March 10: Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, as quoted by the reformist newspaper Entekhab, reiterated that Iran had not received a letter from Trump. 
• March 10: The official account of the permanent representative of Iran to the United Nations wrote on X: 
  • “If the objective of negotiations is to address concerns vis-à-vis any potential militarization of Iran’s nuclear program, such discussions may be subject to consideration. However, should the aim be the dismantlement of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program to claim that what Obama failed to achieve has now been accomplished, such negotiations will never take place.” 
• March 10: Araghchi wrote on X: 
  • “Iran’s nuclear energy program has always been—and will always remain—entirely peaceful. There is fundamentally therefore no such thing as its ‘potential militarization’. We will NOT negotiate under pressure and intimidation. We will NOT even consider it, no matter what the subject may be. Negotiation is different from bullying and issuing diktats.” 

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