Trump claims Tehran wants dialogue, Iran's Larijani says no negotiations with US

Iran "will not negotiate with the United States," Ali Larijani, the powerful head of Tehran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday (2 March), a day after US President Donald Trump told The Atlantic the country's new leadership wanted to speak with him and that he planned to do so.

In a post on X, Larijani denied media reports that Iranian officials had sought to initiate talks with the Trump administration following a wave of US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend, which came after Tehran and Washington held nuclear negotiations, says AFP.

In another post on X, he said that Trump had plunged the Middle East into chaos with his "delusional fantasies and now fears more American casualties."

"He turned his self-made 'America First' slogan into 'Israel First' and sacrificed American soldiers for Israel's power-hungry ambitions," Larijani said. It is American soldiers and their families who would pay the cost, he said, adding that Iran would continue to defend itself, reports Al Jazeera.

Trump earlier said to The Atlantic, "They want to talk and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. 

"They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long."

Meanwhile, Trump warned on Sunday that combat operations in Iran were continuing and will carry on until all of Washington's objectives are achieved.

Trump confirmed in a video posted on Truth Social that three US service members had been killed and said there would likely be more casualties, vowing to avenge the deaths of Americans, reports Reuters.

"Combat operations continue at this time in full force, and they will continue until all of our objectives are achieved. We have very strong objectives," Trump said.

The US military announced on Sunday the first American casualties of President Donald Trump's intensifying attack on Iran, as a new poll showed only one in four Americans supported strikes against the Middle Eastern country.

As the conflict entered its second day, Trump said 48 Iranian leaders had been killed and that the US military had started sinking Iran's Navy, destroying nine Iranian warships so far and "going after the rest."

US aircraft and warships have struck more than 1,000 Iranian targets since Trump ordered the start of major combat operations on Saturday, the US military said. The strikes include B-2 stealth bombers dropping 2,000-lb bombs on hardened, underground Iranian missile facilities.

Iran's retaliatory attacks also started taking their toll. Although the US military reported no casualties on Saturday, on Sunday it said three US troops were killed and another five were seriously wounded in US operations against Iran.