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Trump Says He Sent Letter to Iran Leader to Negotiate Nuclear Deal
US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, on the day he signs executive orders, at the White House in Washington, DC, March 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
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.
“I think they want to get that letter. The other alternative is we have to do something, because you can’t let another nuclear weapon.”
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.
Iran’s Nour News, affiliated with the country’s top security body, dismissed Trump’s letter as a “repetitive show” by Washington.
Asked whether he had sent the letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s fiercely anti-Western Supreme Leader, Trump said, “Yes.”
“There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal,” Trump said. “I would prefer to make a deal, because I’m not looking to hurt Iran. They’re great people.”
In the interview, conducted on Thursday, Trump said he sent the letter “yesterday,” indicating Wednesday.
Western officials fear a nuclear-armed Iran could threaten Israel, Gulf Arab oil producers, and spark a regional arms race.
Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
RUSSIAN OFFER TO MEDIATE
Trump has upended US foreign policy after taking office in January, adopting a more conciliatory stance towards Russia that has left Western allies wary as he tries to broker an end to Moscow’s three-year-old war in Ukraine.
Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, a multinational agreement that placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, in 2018, a year into his first White House term.
Last month, Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran that includes efforts to drive its oil exports down to zero. However, he also said he would like to make a deal with Tehran.
It is unclear how Trump’s overture to Iran would be received by US ally Israel, an arch foe of Tehran. Iran and Israel mounted military strikes on each other last April and October.
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately return a request for comment on Trump’s letter to Iran.
Russia has offered to mediate between the United States and Iran, a source briefed on discussions told Reuters on Tuesday, as the Kremlin vowed to do everything possible to facilitate a peaceful solution to tensions over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov discussed international efforts to resolve the situation around Iran’s nuclear program with Iranian ambassador Kazem Jalali, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Friday.
Meanwhile, senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic has deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a Reuters review of travel records and employment data indicates.
SANCTIONS AND DIPLOMACY
After Trump quit the nuclear agreement in 2018, Iran began moving away from its nuclear-related commitments under the 2015 deal between Iran and key world powers, which lifted sanctions on Iran in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
After taking office in January, Trump also directed his UN ambassador to work with allies to “complete the snapback of international sanctions and restrictions on Iran.”
Britain, France, and Germany told the United Nations Security Council in December that they are ready – if necessary – to trigger the restoration of all the international sanctions to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
It was not the first time a US president has communicated with Iranian leaders. Under Iranian law, the supreme leader, not the president, has the last say on key state matters like Iran’s foreign policy and the nuclear program.
When US President Barack Obama took office in 2009, he offered Khamenei direct engagement – provided Iran was serious about ending concerns over its nuclear program. Obama twice wrote directly to Khamenei, in 2009 and again in 2012.
Iranian officials in 2014 acknowledged that Tehran had replied to previous letters from Obama, though it was not clear who specifically had responded.
Iran confirmed in 2013 that President Hassan Rouhani had exchanged letters with Obama, confirming a rare contact between leaders of the two nations.
The United States and Iran cut diplomatic relations in 1980, after students and Islamic militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage.
The full Trump interview will air over the weekend on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
The post Trump Says He Sent Letter to Iran Leader to Negotiate Nuclear Deal first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
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