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Iran Criticizes US, Trump     02/07 06:46

   

   DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran's supreme leader said Friday that 
negotiations with America "are not intelligent, wise or honorable" after 
President Donald Trump floated nuclear talks with Tehran.

   Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that "there should be no negotiations 
with such a government," but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to 
engage with Washington.

   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.

   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 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

   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."

   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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