(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country is not pursuing nuclear weapons and dismissed US President Donald Trump’s calls for negotiations as a “trick.”
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While doubling down on his position opposing talks with the Trump administration about Tehran’s atomic activities, Khamenei said he isn’t after a war but that Iran would “definitely” hit back in the event of a military attack.
Khamenei’s latest statement comes as a top advisor to the United Arab Emirates visits Tehran to deliver a letter from Trump addressing the Islamic Republic’s leadership, according to Iranian state TV. Earlier on Wednesday, China said it would host talks with Russia and Iran about the latter’s nuclear activities.
Khamenei said in his speech that the letter has yet to reach him.
The cleric, who’s been Iran’s head of state for almost four decades, said the experience of sitting down to nuclear talks with the administration of former US President Barack Obama ultimately led to disaster for the Islamic Republic, after the deal they agreed in 2015 was abandoned by Trump three years later.
“Why isn’t Iran willing to negotiate? Take a look at yourselves. We sat down and negotiated for years, and this very same person then took a complete, signed agreement and tore it up,” Khamenei said in comments referring to the US and Trump.
“When the US president says we’re ready to negotiate with Iran and invites us to talks, it’s a trick to deceive the world’s public opinion,” he said in a speech shown on Iranian state TV on Wednesday.
Trump has repeatedly said he won’t allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic has long denied it’s interested in acquiring a bomb and the 2015 nuclear agreement that Trump abandoned had imposed tight limits on Tehran’s atomic work in exchange for sanctions relief.
Iran has since significantly ramped up its uranium enrichment activity, stoking fears in the West that it’s closer to establishing the capability to produce a nuclear warhead. Trump has also revived his so-called maximum pressure strategy on Iran since returning to the White House by increasing sanctions.
“The reason we don’t have nuclear weapons and aren’t pursuing them is simply that we don’t want to. We’ve explained and discussed these reasons before. It’s our own decision, and if we had wanted to, they wouldn’t have been able to stop us,” Khamenei said on Wednesday, again referring to the US.