Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that negotiations with the US will not lead to the removal of sanctions but will instead tighten them.
His remarks came during an annual meeting with university students in Tehran.
He noted that some within Iran continue to raise the issue of negotiations with the US, asking why Iran does Tehran not engage in talks. He said his response is that negotiations would not yield positive results for the country.
"I want to say that if the goal of negotiation is to lift sanctions, negotiating with this US government will not lift sanctions, meaning it won't remove the sanctions," he stated. "It will tighten the knot of the sanctions, it will increase the pressure. Negotiating with this government will increase the pressure."
It came on the same day that Anwar Gargash, a senior Emirati diplomat and advisor to the president of the United Arab Emirates, arrived in Tehran to meet Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Gargash brought with him a letter from US President Donald Trump for Ayatollah Khamenei, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry,
While the content of the letter remains speculative, sources suggest that Trump is seeking to resume negotiations with Iran in hopes of resurrecting the 2015 nuclear deal in exchange for curbs on Iran's nuclear program.
Trump unilaterally withdrew from the landmark accord in May 2018, after which Iran gradually increased its uranium enrichment from 3.57%, as stipulated in the deal, to 60% purity.
Iran engaged in indirect negotiations with the Joe Biden administration, mediated by the EU, but the marathon talks failed to produce any breakthrough as tensions continued to simmer.
In his remarks Wednesday, Khamenei said sanctions are not ineffective, but they are not the sole cause of Iran's economic problems.
He addressed American threats to Iran's nuclear program, saying that the US claims it will not allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. He asserted, however, that if Iran had wanted to develop nuclear weapons, the US would not have been able to stop it.
"The fact that we do not have nuclear weapons and are not seeking them is because we ourselves do not want them for certain reasons," Khamenei pointed out.
He emphasized that Iran is not seeking war, but if the US and its allies make a "wrong move," the response from Iran will be "decisive and certain."
