Iran’s security chief says there will be no talks until Tehran’s conditions are met
Iran’s security chief on Tuesday ruled out talks with the United States after President Donald Trump said he was open to resuming discussions on the Middle East war.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote on X: “Don’t get distracted by the U.S. president’s mixed signals — from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we’re ready to talk’. The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming. No talks until Iran’s conditions are met. Period!”
Trump said on Monday he was open to holding talks, after weeks of arguing it was too early to settle the war. On Truth Social he wrote that Iran wanted a deal “quickly and badly” and that he would decide whether the United States engaged—“The concept of which we are open to.”
Tehran has repeatedly listed conditions that include war reparations and the lifting of sanctions before it will end the fighting and its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The exchange is a familiar loop: a public hint of talks from Washington, a public lock from Tehran. Rezaei’s point is that mixed messages do not reset the file. Oil and the strait, in his telling, have already changed the price of any conversation. Trump’s point is that he still holds the choice of whether to sit down. Neither statement opens a channel by itself. Reparations and sanctions relief are political demands, not a venue and a date. Until those demands are either met or bargained down in a room that both sides admit exists, “open to talks” and “no talks” can sit on the same news cycle without a single negotiator boarding a plane.
