{"id":592224,"date":"2026-04-18T18:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T18:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592224\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T18:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T18:30:08","slug":"iranian-official-says-us-maximalist-demands-stall-face-to-face-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/592224\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian official says US ‘maximalist’ demands stall face-to-face talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 Iran<\/a> is not yet ready to hold a new round of face-to-face talks with U.S. officials, a senior Iranian official said Saturday, citing Washington\u2019s refusal to abandon \u201cmaximalist\u201d demands on key issues.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Associated Press on the margins of a diplomacy forum in Turkey, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh also said his country will not hand over its enriched uranium to the United States, rejecting claims made by U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you that no enriched material is going to be shipped to United States,\u201d Khatibzadeh said. \u201cThis is non-starter and I can assure you that while we are ready to address any concerns that we do have, we\u2019re not going to accept things that are nonstarters.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday, Trump said that the U.S. will go into Iran and \u201cget all the nuclear dust,\u201d referring to the 970 pounds (440 kilograms) of enriched uranium believed to be buried under nuclear sites badly damaged by U.S. military strikes last year.<\/p>\n

Khatibzadeh said there have been many exchanges of messages between the sides but accused the United States of holding firm on demands Iran deems to be excessive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still not there yet to move on to an actual meeting because there are issues that the Americans have not yet abandoned their maximalist position,\u201d Khatibzadeh said. Iran was seeking the finalization of a \u201cframework agreement\u201d before moving to an in-person meeting, he added.<\/p>\n

The Iranian official would not go into specifics of the negotiations with the United States or say which issues remain unresolved but called on Washington to address Iran\u2019s concerns, including sanctions imposed on Iran. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe other sides also should understand and address our main concerns, which are illegal unilateral sanctions that Americans have imposed on Iranians and this economic terrorism which has targeted Iranian people to suffocate them and make them to revolt against the political structure inside Iran,\u201d Khatibzadeh said.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Iran would respond to renewed attacks by Israel on Lebanon despite the ceasefire, Khatibzadeh said: \u201cIran has no option, just to stop aggressors once and forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said that Israel is \u201cprohibited\u201d by the U.S. from further strikes on Lebanon and that \u201cenough is enough\u201d in the Israel-Hezbollah<\/a> war.<\/p>\n

The State Department said the prohibition applies only to offensive attacks and not to actions taken in self-defense.<\/p>\n

The Iranian official renewed Iran\u2019s position that Tehran\u2019s actions were defensive and in response to unprovoked aggression occurring in the middle of negotiations.<\/p>\n

He also reiterated Iran\u2019s position that the ceasefire must extend to Lebanon, where Israel had been fighting with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. <\/p>\n

When the U.S. and Iran declared a temporary truce last week, Pakistan and Iran said it extended to Lebanon, but Israel \u2014 and later the U.S. \u2014 denied this. Israel then launched a series of airstrikes on central Beirut, prompting Iran to announce it was once again closing the Strait of Hormuz. Following implementation of a truce in Lebanon Friday, Iran said it had reopened the strait.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran negotiated with good faith, accepted a ceasefire and told everybody that this ceasefire should include all countries, including Lebanon,\u201d Khatibzadeh said. \u201cThen the other side said that, it is not committed to this and then started atrocities.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that a \u201cnew protocol\u201d would be put in place for the Strait of Hormuz as part of the negotiations with the U.S. and it would \u201cremain open and safe for all civilian passage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has said a U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will remain and attacks will resume if no agreement is reached with Iran.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https:\/\/apnews.com\/projects\/the-new-nuclear-landscape\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 Iran is not yet ready to hold a new round of face-to-face talks with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1930,3505,12,793,7590,801,1570,228242,31737,129,3,111,258428,3776,12807,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,964,965],"class_list":{"0":"post-592224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-diplomacy","10":"tag-district-of-columbia","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-agreements","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-iran-government","16":"tag-iran-war","17":"tag-lebanon","18":"tag-middle-east","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-saeed-khatibzadeh","22":"tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","23":"tag-turkey","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-government","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa","31":"tag-war-and-unrest","32":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}