The Chief of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards rejected a plea from Iranian activists to agree to negotiate with the United States on resolving differences, accusing those that demand negotiations of “siding with the United States, the enemy of the Iranian peoples.” General Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted by the ISNA news agency as warning that “Striking an understanding with the United States means the death of the Islamic republic.” Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht echoed Jafari’s remarks, saying “There is no foundation or logic to talk to such a person (as Trump),” while asserting that “Public opinion in Iran would not welcome that either.” That said, while most voices in Tehran reject any concessions to the Trump Administration, an article published this morning by a state-owned newspaper, Iran’s top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif announced a list of 15 demands for improving relations with the United States, in response to a similar list of demands made by Washington last month. Among the list of demands, Foreign Minister Zarif demanded an immediate U.S. return to the multinational nuclear agreement, an immediate American intervention to stop the Saudi-led coalition from advancing against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, and to drop Washington’s opposition to a nuclear disarmament of Israel. The article came in response to demands laid out in May by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who called for a wholesale change in Iran’s military and regional policies, threatening the Islamic Republic with the “strongest sanctions in history,” if it would refuse.
