Tehran (TDI): Iran has dismissed claims by US President Donald Trump that Tehran was seeking to re-enter talks with Washington, insisting no such outreach had taken place.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, “There has been no request from our side to engage in any meeting with the American officials.”
The statement came a day after President Trump, speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, claimed that negotiations with Iran had already been arranged.
“We’ve scheduled Iran talks. They’re ready. They want to talk,” Trump told reporters. “They want to work something out. They’re not the same as they were two weeks ago.”
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Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, pushed back strongly, saying his country remains skeptical of American intentions, particularly in the wake of last month’s military escalation.
In a column published in the Financial Times, Araghchi wrote, “Iran has received some messages hinting that the US may be prepared to return to the table. But given recent events, how can we trust further engagement?”
He was referring to the Israeli aerial assault launched on June 13, which struck Iranian military, nuclear, and civilian sites, killing senior officers and scientists. Just days before those strikes, Tehran and Washington had reportedly been preparing to resume stalled nuclear negotiations.
Tensions escalated further when the US military joined Israeli forces on June 22, targeting key nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. The offensive coincided with what was expected to be a breakthrough in nuclear diplomacy.
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“After agreeing in good faith to restart negotiations, we were met with coordinated strikes from two nuclear-armed nations,” Araghchi wrote. “Iran remains open to diplomacy, but given what’s happened, we are right to question the sincerity of future dialogue.”
The prospect of renewed talks appears to have dimmed following the violence, despite prior rounds of negotiations that had been ongoing since mid-April.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
