Khamenei referred to Trump’s remarks that “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing…the likes of which they have never seen before.”
By REUTERSMARCH 31, 2025 08:57Updated: MARCH 31, 2025 11:03
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that the US would receive a strong blow if it acts on President Donald Trump’s threat of bombing if the country does not reach a new nuclear deal with Washington.
“The enmity from the US and Israel has always been there. They threaten to attack us, which we don’t think is very probable, but if they commit any mischief they will surely receive a strong reciprocal blow,” Khamenei said.
“And if they are thinking of causing sedition inside the country as in past years, the Iranian people themselves will deal with them,” he added.
This refers to Trump’s first remarks since Iran rejected direct negotiations with Washington last week, in which he told NBC News that US and Iranian officials were talking but did not elaborate.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said in the telephone interview. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
US President Donald Trump against backdrop of Iranian missile (illustration). (credit: Canva/DavorLovincic, Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker)
“There’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago,” he added.
Iran sent a response through Oman to a letter from Trump urging Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal, saying its policy was to not engage in direct negotiations with the United States while under its maximum pressure campaign and military threats, Tehran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Thursday.
Indirect negotiations to continue?
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated the policy on Sunday. “Direct negotiations (with the US) have been rejected, but Iran has always been involved in indirect negotiations, and now too, the Supreme Leader has emphasized that indirect negotiations can still continue,” he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“An open threat of ‘bombing’ by a head of state against Iran is a shocking affront to the very essence of international peace and security,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei tweeted on Monday.
“Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The US can choose the course and concede to consequences,” Baghaei continued.
In his first 2017-21 term, Trump withdrew the US from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump also reimposed sweeping US sanctions.
Since then, Iran has far surpassed that deal’s limits on uranium enrichment.
Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy program. Tehran says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian energy purposes.
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-848235.
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