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President Trump offered to meet the Iranian president face to face via a diplomatic back channel this week, in the days leading up to the US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, but received no answer.
According to Axios, senior US officials confirmed that President Trump was negotiating with senior members of the Iranian regime and attempting to put together a last-ditch diplomatic meeting in Istanbul.
The efforts failed, apparently, when Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who has been in hiding over fears of assassination, could not be reached.
President Trump is reported to have received a phone call from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday, while Trump was in Canada meeting G7 leaders.
Erdoğan proposed holding a meeting in Istanbul the next day between US and Iranian officials. The sources who spoke to Axios said President Trump suggested sending Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff—and that he even said he would attend personally and meet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshian—in order to secure a deal and avert military action.
Iran was receptive to the idea of a meeting, and communication continued via back channels until it became clear that Ayatollah Khamenei could not be reached, at which point Turkey told the US the meeting would not take place.
On Saturday, US B2 bombers attacked three nuclear sites in Iran, at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, after more than a week of uncertainty about US intentions following Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, ballistic-missile sites and senior military figures.
In a post on Truth Social last night, President Donald Trump congratulated the US military and said, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE.”
In a separate, later, post, the President warned Iran that retaliation against the US for the strikes would prompt an even bigger military response.
Iran has reacted with defiance to the strikes, vowing to continue enriching uranium.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) issued a statement in which it condemned the strikes as “barbaric” and said the national program for enriching uranium, “which is the result of the blood of nuclear martyrs,” will not be stopped.
