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Agence France-Presse

US President Donald Trump said he has written to Iran pressing it to open talks on preventing the development of nuclear weapons or face possible military action.
Iran’s foreign minister told AFP on Friday that the country would not negotiate so long as the United States applies “maximum pressure”, but he was not responding directly to Trump’s letter.
Trump’s outreach marks a departure at least in tone from the hardline stance in his first term and could cause a rift with close ally Israel, which last year carried out bombing strikes inside Iran.
Trump said he wrote a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei telling him that a negotiated solution “will be a lot better for Iran”.
“I’ve written them a letter, saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily it’s going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump told Fox Business in a clip broadcast on Friday.
“You can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”

A landmark 2015 deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
It fell apart after Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018 in his first presidential term.
Tehran adhered to the deal until a year after Washington pulled out, but then began rolling back its commitments.
Trump, who returned to the White House in January, reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against Iran over allegations the country is seeking nuclear weapons capability.
Tehran has consistently denied the claims and repeatedly expressed a willingness to revive the accord but efforts to that end have faltered.
Trump has since sidelined officials from his first term associated with his Iran policy, as Trump accuses Washington’s foreign policy establishment of encouraging war.
Trump’s brash billionaire confidant Elon Musk was reported to have met Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations shortly after the election to deliver a message that Trump wants calm and diplomacy.
But Trump’s Middle East point man, Steve Witkoff, said on Thursday he was not aware of anyone in the administration now in talks with Iran, which has no diplomatic relations with the United States.

Iran has been cautious about a return to diplomacy since the collapse of the JCPOA.
“We will not enter any direct negotiations with the US so long as they continue their maximum pressure policy and their threats,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told AFP on Friday.
Speaking on the sidelines of an Organization of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Jeddah, Araghchi also warned that Iran’s nuclear programme “cannot be destroyed through military operations”.
“This is a technology that we have achieved, and the technology is in the brains and cannot be bombed,” he said.
Aragchi was a key negotiator of the JCPOA, brokered by a then reformist government.
But Khamenei, 85, is the ultimate decision-maker in Iran’s clerical system and has pointed to the JCPOA as proof that the United States is not trustworthy.


Trump’s outreach comes as Iran sinks to one of its weakest points since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Israel devastated Iranian air defences and has also pounded two militant movements allied with Iran’s clerical state: Hamas, which carried out the unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and also Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Iran’s main regional ally, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, fell in December to Sunni Islamist-led fighters.
Iran has consistently denied claims that it is pursuing nuclear weapons and has repeatedly expressed a willingness to revive the JCPOA.
But efforts to do so have faltered. Former president Joe Biden supported the JCPOA but talks broke down in part in a dispute over the extent of sanctions relief.
Last month, United Nations atomic agency chief Rafael Grossi said Iran was “enriching (uranium) at 60 per cent, so almost weapon level” and that the 2015 deal was an “empty shell” that was “no longer fit for purpose”.


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Donald Trump

A man writes on a portrait of the US President Donald Trump during a rally commemorating the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the late pro-US Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought Islamic clerics to power, in Tehran on February 10, 2025. Photo: AP

Trump’s outreach marks a departure at least in tone from the hardline stance in his first term and could cause a rift with close ally Israel, which last year carried out bombing strikes inside Iran. Photo: EPA-EFE

Iranians burn a structure with a poster of US President Donald Trump next to an Etemad missile in Tehran on February 10, 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE

Macron proposes France nuclear shield extension, Ukraine troop deployment

France’s President Emmanuel Macron addresses the French people in a televised speech about the war in Ukraine on Wednesday. Photo: AFP/dpa

A Rafale jet fighter on France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. File photo: AP

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France’s President Emmanuel Macron in London on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Russia’s Putin to help Trump mediate US-Iran nuclear talks

Iranians march during a rally marking the 46th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran on February 10. Photo: AP

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (right) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shake hands during their meeting in Riyadh on February 18. Photo: SPA/AFP

US Treasury sanctions network delivering Iranian oil to China

The US Treasury Department building in Washington. The Treasury on Thursday sanctioned an ‘international network’ accused of shipping Iranian oil to China to fund Tehran’s military activities. Photo: AFP

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Photo: Reuters

Israel’s Netanyahu thanks Trump for weapons to ‘finish the job’ against Iran axis

US President Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on February 4. Photo: Reuters

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World

United States & Canada

A landmark 2015 deal that imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme fell apart after Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018


A landmark 2015 deal that imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme fell apart after Trump withdrew the US from the agreement in 2018.
