02/03/2026
Iran has agreed to resume negotiations with the United States in the aftermath of coordinated US-Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and left the country’s military and political leadership in disarray, President Donald Trump said on Saturday.
Speaking to The Atlantic in a telephone interview with reporter Michael Scherer, Trump said Tehran had initiated contact and that he had accepted. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk,” he said. “They should have done it sooner. They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
In remarks that were striking for their bluntness, Trump indicated that some of the Iranian officials previously involved in earlier rounds of negotiations were among those killed in the strikes. “Most of those people are gone. Some of the people we were dealing with are gone, because that was a big hit,” he said. “They should’ve done it sooner. They The scale of the losses Iran has absorbed is significant. Beyond Khamenei, the strikes killed Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, along with several senior Revolutionary Guard commanders and other defence officials. Khamenei’s daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and a grandchild were also killed. Iran is reported to be operating under transitional leadership whilst the Assembly of Experts convenes to select a successor to the supreme leader — a process with no modern precedent and no clear timeline too cute.”
Iranian authorities have declared a period of national mourning. Trump did not disclose which Iranian official or officials had made contact with Washington, nor who within Tehran’s transitional structure is now driving the outreach.
The human cost of the conflict continues to mount. Iranian officials and regional monitors estimate that more than 200 people have been killed and upwards of 700 injured since the strikes began. In Israel, authorities say at least nine people have been killed and more than 100 injured in retaliatory missile and drone attacks launched by Iran against US and Israeli military installations across the Middle East.
Whether the reported agreement to talk will hold — and who on the Iranian side has the authority to deliver on any commitments made — remains the central uncertainty hanging over a conflict that has, within the space of days, fundamentally altered the balance of power in the Middle East.
