Iranian politician says Trump unlikely to accept indirect talks

While Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has repeatedly emphasized that Tehran is committed to holding indirect talks with Washington, a prominent politician in Tehran argues that President Donald Trump is unlikely to accept such negotiations.

Araghchi, widely seen as representing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s position, has stated in multiple interviews and statements that Iran’s current strategy is to engage with the US through intermediaries.

However, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, former head of the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Relations and National Security Committee, told the conservative Nameh News website: “Trump will not accept negotiations through intermediaries.”

He also criticized President Massoud Pezeshkian for “lacking a clear foreign policy strategy,” arguing that while Trump appears to have a plan for every possible scenario, Iran’s president has yet to outline a vision for Tehran’s future relations with Washington.

Since Pezeshkian is widely known to have limited authority over foreign policy, the criticism may have been aimed at Khamenei, though the politician would not have dared to address him directly.

“Currently, Trump's plan is to force Iran to the negotiating table through maximum pressure,” Falahatpisheh said, adding that “diplomacy will have a chance if Trump moderates his stance.” He also made it clear that Trump seeks direct talks with Iran.

Falahatpisheh further noted that apart from some Persian Gulf states, most international players are focused on their own interests rather than easing tensions between Iran and the US. He pointed to the recent trilateral meeting between Iran, China, and Russia in Beijing, saying that both China and Russia were primarily advancing their own agendas rather than working to resolve Iran’s standoff with Washington.

Earlier this week, Khamenei's senior adviser Ali Larijani, as well as prominent economists in Tehran said that Iran needs to address its problems with the United States urgently in a bid to lift or reduce US sanctions and give the ailing economy a chance to grow after many years of crises and stagnation.

Iranian economist Mehdi Pazouki, an academic in Tehran told the press that Iran's economy is hostage to the country's failing foreign policy and Iran's inability to have amicable relations with the world.

Ali Ghanbari, another Iranian economist, told Iranian media that the country’s economy is under strain due to its foreign policy, which is not controlled by the Pezeshkian administration. Without explicitly stating that Khamenei, rather than Pezeshkian, oversees Iran’s foreign policy—particularly Tehran’s relations with Washington—Ghanbari described it as “a structural problem beyond the control of Pezeshkian’s government.”

Given this reality, Falahatpisheh outlined two possible scenarios for the future of Iran-US dynamics: “Either a war breaks out between Iran and Israel, with the United States carrying out precision strikes on targets in Iran—an escalation that would not stop there but spread across the region—or there will be no war, but additional countries will join the United States in its maximum pressure campaign against Iran.”

He noted that even China and Russia will cautiously support the United States in this case if Washington guarantees their interests.

Falahatpisheh noted that “Iran has not identified its opportunities in this situation or considered the consequences of what might unfold.” He blamed Pezeshkian’s passivity and inaction for the current state of affairs, suggesting that the president should begin the new year with concrete operational plans. Meanwhile, Pezeshkian’s stated approach has been to push forward Khamenei’s impractical vision of domestic investment as a path to economic recovery—without explaining how it would be implemented.

As inaction continues and unrealistic economic projections persist, the exchange rate for the US dollar in Tehran’s markets has surpassed one million rials. According to former Central Bank governor Mohammad Hossein Adeli, every Iranian household is effectively paying 180 million rials ($180) per month as a hidden cost of US sanctions. He warned that with each Iranian losing money to the sanctions’ impact on non-oil trade, the situation could become a serious security issue for the country before 2029.