A senior Trump administration official said on Tuesday that there had been no diplomatic negotiations between the United States and Iran since the start of the U.S. bombing campaign on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters on background, the official denied reports that Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, or the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom led negotiations with Iran in the lead-up to the attack, had been in contact with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi or with Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“We’re not using anyone as an interlocutor,” the official said. “No messaging back and forth between the countries.”
“This is a military action, and it’s got to run its course,” the official said.
Larijani also denied on Sunday that he had reached out for talks.
“We will not negotiate with the United States,” Larijani wrote.
The two senior Trump administration officials who briefed reporters provided additional details about the failure of talks that led to the start of the military operation against Iran on Saturday.
One of the officials said that talks were intended to be divided into two tracks, with the United States negotiating with Iran on nuclear issues, and countries in the region leading on discussions of Iran’s ballistic missiles and its support for terrorist proxy forces.
The official said that the Iranians “made no attempt whatsoever to convene the region” to discuss non-nuclear issues.
“We reminded them that irrespective of any conclusions or agreements we might come to on nuclear, that had to be discussed,” the official said. “Of course, it didn’t go over well with them.”
The officials accused Iran of using the negotiations as a stalling tactic and said that it failed to appreciate the threat of U.S. military action.
“We’ve got an aircraft carrier out there that they’re complaining about, we got a second one on the way that they’re aware of, and they’re complaining about that, and yet we can’t get an agreement out of them,” the official said. “What does that say about their decision-making structure? What does that say about whether they feel it’s compelling to settle this thing or not?”
“This was a very obvious conclusion that there was no deal to do that would have created a different long-term paradigm,” the second official said.
