Khamenei's remarks upend months of signals from Tehran to the United States that it wanted to negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing economic sanctions worth billions of dollars. Following Khamenei's comments, the Iranian rial sunk to a record low of 872,000 rials to $1 in aftermarket trading.
What happens next remains unclear, particularly as reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian promised as recently as Thursday to enter into a dialogue with the West.
Khamenei's remarks to air force officers in Tehran appeared to contradict his own earlier remarks in August that opened the door to talks. However, the 85-year-old Khamenei has always been careful with remarks about negotiating with the West. That includes balancing the demands of reformists within the country who want the talks against hard-line elements within Iran's theocracy, including the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Khamenei noted that Trump unilaterally withdrew from the earlier nuclear deal under which Iran drastically limited its enrichment of uranium and overall stockpile of the material, in exchange for crushing sanctions being removed.
“The Americans did not uphold their end of the deal,” Khamenei said. “The very person who is in office today tore up the agreement. He said he would, and he did.”
He added: "This is an experience we must learn from. We negotiated, we gave concessions, we compromised— but we did not achieve the results we aimed for. And despite all its flaws, the other side ultimately violated and destroyed the agreement.”
Mixed messages from both Iran and Trump
It's not clear what sparked Khamenei's remarks. However, they come after Trump suggested he wanted to deal with Tehran, even while signing an executive order to reimpose his "maximum pressure" approach to Iran on Tuesday.
“I’m going to sign it, but hopefully we’re not going to have to use it very much,” he said from the Oval Office. “We will see whether or not we can arrange or work out a deal with Iran.”
“We don’t want to be tough on Iran. We don’t want to be tough on anybody,” Trump added. “But they just can’t have a nuclear bomb.”
Trump followed with another online message on Wednesday, saying: “Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.”
“I would much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed.” He did not elaborate.
Nuclear enrichment sparks concerns
Khamenei, like other Iranian leaders, uses elliptical comments to indirectly govern policy while not boxing himself into any one decision. As supreme leader, he's also created a vast bureaucracy that competes with itself for influence, including with its civilian leadership under Pezeshkian.
As recently as Thursday, Pezeshkian suggested Iran could open itself up to even more inspections from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“They (can) come and inspect one hundred times more since we are not supposed to go after” a nuclear weapon, Pezeshkian told foreign diplomats.
Iranian diplomats have long pointed to Khamenei’s preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran won't build an atomic bomb.
Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. However, it now enriches uranium to 60% purity — a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iranian officials increasingly suggest Tehran could pursue an atomic bomb. U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Iran calls U.S. sanctions on oil trading firms ‘unjustified’
Earlier in the week, Trump also said that displaced Palestinians in Gaza could be permanently resettled outside the war-torn territory and proposed the U.S. take “ownership” in redeveloping the area into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Khamenei appeared to reference Trump's Gaza proposal in his remarks.
“The Americans sit, redrawing the map of the world — but only on paper, as it has no basis in reality," Khamenei said. “They make statements about us, express opinions and issue threats. If they threaten us, we will threaten them in return. If they act on their threats, we will act on ours. If they violate the security of our nation, we will, without a doubt, respond in kind.”
Meanwhile, Iran's Foreign Ministry separately criticized the U.S. Treasury's move to levy sanctions Thursday against firms trading sanctioned Iranian crude oil to China. The Treasury described the firms as forming an “international network for facilitating the shipment of millions of barrels of Iranian crude oil worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei called the Treasury's decision “completely unjustified and contrary to international rules and regulations.”
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Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat and Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP