Iran rebuffs Trump’s plan for nuclear negotiations, but is open to indirect talks

Iran has rejected US President Donald Trump's proposal to directly negotiate a nuclear deal, but Tehran is open for indirect talks to continue, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said March 27.

"Our policy remains [the same], not negotiating directly under the conditions of maximum pressure and military threats, but indirect negotiations, as they have taken place in the past, can continue," Araghchi told Iran's official news agency IRNA.

The comments come as the Trump administration has been taking a harder stance on Iran, pushing to get the country's oil exports down to nearly zero to reach a nuclear deal.

The US is also reportedly building up its military presence at the Diego Garcia airbase in the Indian Ocean, which is a launch point for operations in the Middle East. Satellite photos show a growing number of cargo planes, refueling tankers and stealth bombers arriving in recent days.

Iran sent its response to Trump on March 26 via Oman, Araghchi told IRNA. "This official response includes a letter in which our views regarding the current situation and Mr. Trump's letter are fully elaborated," he said.

The letter responds to a March 12 letter Trump sent to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

According to the leaked contents, Trump set a two-month deadline for Tehran to decide whether to negotiate a nuclear deal and warned that the US is keeping its military options open.

On his X account, Araghchi questioned the reliability of the US and posted a copy of a leaked Signal message from the US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

"As for Iran, we see perhaps another reason to take the recent political overtures with a huge grain of salt," wrote Araghchi.

Indirect options

But Tehran too seems to be keeping its options open

After saying that Iran will not tolerate "overbearing and bullying," Kamal Kharrazi, a senior adviser to Khamenei, said March 27 that Iran was ready for "indirect talks," IRNA reported.

The US has strategized its move by "economic sanctions and military threats... the result of this strategy will not be anything but the imposition of one side's demand on the other side under threats and coercion," said Kharrazi, who is a former foreign minister.

"Of course, the Islamic Republic has not closed all the ways. It is rather willing to talk indirectly in order to assess the other side, declare its own conditions and take the deserving decision," Kharrazi said.

A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Alireza Tangsiri, distanced Tehran from the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

"Yemen is an independent country, and they build their weapons and military equipment with their own hands. They don't take orders from anyone," said Alireza Tangsiri, the US-designated commander of the naval forces of the country's Revolutionary Guards.

The Trump administration in recent weeks launched a series of military strikes on the Houthis. Trump also has warned that every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon as being fired from the weapons and leadership of Iran.

Sanctions pressure

Washington also has also ramped up sanctions on Tehran. Recent sanctions on a Chinese independent refinery and a crude oil petroleum products storage terminal were seen as bringing the US closer to maximum pressure while leaving room for negotiations.

But while the US could boost enforcement of existing sanctions, it may be hard to further increase pressure on Iran unilaterally, Ellen Wald, president of Transversal Consulting, said in an email.

Former President Barack Obama was able to push sanctions through the UN that helped curb some Chinese purchases of Iranian crude, but that is unlikely to be an option this time, Wald said. An embargo is also an option, but that is essentially an act of war, she said.

The US military is unlikely to be able to disrupt the ship-to-ship transfers that enable the Iranian oil trade, because these often take place in waters where US ships are not allowed or welcome, Wald said.

"A US military vessel can't just intercept ships in Malaysian or Chinese or Russian waters without permission, so short of identifying where they are happening and slapping the buyers with big fines, there isn't that much else that can be done with financial sanctions," Wald said.

Iran pumped 3.23 million b/d of crude in February, according to the latest Platts OPEC+ survey by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

When Trump withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal during his first term in office, Iranian production dropped as low as 1.95 million b/d in August 2020.