Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei will not meet US President Donald Trump, a senior Iranian official said, underscoring the deep impasse in negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
This comes a couple of days after Trump told the American press that he would be open to meet Khamenei at “some point in the future”.
In an interview with CNN, Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said talks remain deadlocked and that it is up to Trump to revive diplomacy by unfreezing Iranian assets.
Rezaei argued that releasing roughly $24 billion in Iranian funds would be a modest step for the US if it is serious about reaching an agreement.
“This is our own money, not America’s money,” he said, adding that “the cost of negotiating is much less for America than the cost of fighting with us.”
“The negotiations are at a deadlock and (US President Donald) Trump must break this deadlock,” Mohsen Rezaei, military adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, told CNN in an exclusive interview in Tehran.
“The ball is in Trump’s court.”
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Iran has reportedly asked for $24 billion in frozen funds to be released in phases, including an initial $12 billion upon signing an interim deal with the US and a further $12 billion later.
He also warned that if conflict and economic pressure continue, Iran could seek to widen tensions into strategic waterways including the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Mediterranean.
Rezaei reiterated that a meeting between Trump and the Supreme Leader “will not happen.”
Without commenting on Khamenei’s health or his role in Iran’s decision-making process, Rezaei said the talks had stalled due to Trump’s approach. “This will not happen. We are still in the first phase of negotiations, and Mr. Trump has effectively brought the process to a standstill,” he said.
His remarks come days after Trump said he and Khamenei “seem to be getting along well” and that he would be “honored” to meet the Iranian leader.
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On the Strait of Hormuz, Rezaei said Iran and Oman jointly hold sovereignty over the strategic waterway, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments moved before the conflict. He said the two countries would manage the strait together and argued that Iran should not bear the entire cost of maintaining the passage.
Rezaei stopped short of describing the proposed charges on vessels transiting the strait as a toll, instead characterising them as maintenance fees.
Addressing the possibility of a breakdown in talks, Rezaei said Iran was prepared for a potential US military intervention. He asserted that Iran’s land forces possess capabilities that exceed the strength demonstrated by its missile programme.
Rezaei also described the ongoing conflict as a historic turning point for the Islamic Republic, claiming it marked the first time in the country’s 47-year history that Iran had emerged victorious from a war.
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