DUBAI
\nIran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran will not negotiate under pressure by a \u201cbullying country\u201d, a day after US President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to the country\u2019s top authority to negotiate a nuclear deal.
\nIn an interview with Fox Business, Trump said \u201cthere are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal\u201d to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
\nIn a meeting with senior Iranian officials, Khamenei said the aim of Washington\u2019s offer for negotiations was to \u201cimpose their own expectations\u201d, Iranian state media reported.
\n\u201cThe insistence of some bully governments on negotiations is not to resolve issues, but to dominate and impose their own expectations.\u201d
\n\u201cTalks for them is a path to have new expectations, it is not only about Iran\u2019s nuclear issue. Iran will definitely not accept their expectations.\u201d
\nWhile expressing an openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated a \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign that was applied during his first term to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports to zero.
\nDuring his first 2017-2021 term as president, Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark deal between Iran and major powers that placed strict limits on Tehran\u2019s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.
\nAfter Trump pulled out in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, Iran breached and far surpassed those limits.
\nUN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi has said time is running out for diplomacy to impose new restrictions on Iran\u2019s activities, as Tehran continues to accelerate its enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade.
\nTehran insists its nuclear work is solely for peaceful purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBAI Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran will not negotiate under pressure by a \u201cbullying country\u201d, a day after US President Donald Trump said he had sent a letter to the country\u2019s top authority to negotiate a nuclear deal. In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said \u201cthere are two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-466030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n