Iran's president says his country won't try to assassinate President-elect Trump
Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted in an interview his country "never" plotted to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump during last year's U.S. election campaign − and never will in the future.
Pezeshkian made the claim less than a week before Trump returns to the White House, denying previous assertions from Trump and the U.S. government about an Iranian plot. In his first term, Trump pursued a "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. He sought to wreck its economy through intensified sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to negotiate a deal on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs as well as other destabilizing regional activities.
More recently, reports have emerged that Trump may be willing to join or support Israel, emboldened by its recent successes against Iran-backed militants in the Middle East, in military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
"This is another one of those schemes that Israel and other countries are designing to promote Iranophobia," Pezeshkian told NBC News' Lester Holt. "Iran has never attempted to nor does it plan to assassinate anyone."
Pezeshkian said that Iran's adversaries were accusing Tehran of trying to build a nuclear bomb "to fabricate some sort of a pretext" to attack it. "This is not true," he added.
A Trump plot by Iran? Justice Dept. says there was one
The U.S. Justice Department in November charged an Iranian man with a plot allegedly ordered by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps to kill Trump when he was the Republican presidential candidate. The alleged attempt on Trump's life was thwarted before any attack was carried out. U.S. authorities said the plot was part of Iran’s efforts to avenge the death of Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian general who was killed in Iraq in a U.S. drone strike ordered by Trump. In September, Trump said on the campaign trail Iran may have been behind attempts to kill him.
Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic relations since 1980 amid a hostage crisis when Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, known today in Iran as the "U.S. den of spies," and detained more than 50 Americans.
Iran's government sent a written message to the Biden administration via Swiss diplomats in October last year saying it was not actively seeking to kill Trump, according to reports at the time. Iran's diplomatic mission to the United Nations in New York would not confirm or deny the contents of that letter.
U.S. and European governments have long accused Iran of seeking to silence its critics at home and abroad. Civil unrest and anti-government protests routinely erupt inside Iran. However, assassination plots − even denials of plots − against former or serving world leaders are rare. There was no immediate reaction from Trump or President Joe Biden's White House to Pezeshkian's comments promising there will never be an Iranian attempt on Trump's life.
Two life attempts, neither linked to Iran
Trump survived two assassination attempts during the presidential campaign. Investigators have found no evidence of Iranian involvement in either. One took place during a July campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The other occurred in September while Trump was golfing on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Pezeshkian has cultivated an image as a moderate who wants to improve relations with the West, though it is Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, not the president, who has the final say on all Iran's domestic and foreign affairs. Pezeshkian succeeded Iran's hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
Over the last year, Iran's network of militant groups have suffered setbacks as Israel launched its war against Hamas for attacking Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This includes Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the ousted regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Israel accuses Iran of being complicit in Hamas' attack on it, citing its long history of arming and funding the group. Israel and Iran have also directly attacked each other in the last year.
In the interview with NBC News, Pezeshkian said Iran is in principle open to dialogue with the second Trump administration. But he said the U.S. has not lived up to its commitments in the past and that it has sought to topple the Iranian government, an apparent reference to Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign. That initiative saw the U.S. pull out of a nuclear-limiting deal between Iran and world powers brokered by the Obama administration.
There was some expectation, not least from Iran, that Biden would seek to re-enter the 2015 nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. When vice president, he helped negotiate it. That never happened. Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only − civilian energy needs, essentially. Few believe that.
"The problem we have is not in dialogue," Pezeshkian said.
"It's in the commitments that arise from talk and dialogue that we’ll have to commit to."
A representative for Trump's presidential transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
According to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, Iran has dramatically increased its stockpile of enriched uranium, necessary to make a nuclear weapon, since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018. It may now have enough fissile material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons if it decided to.
"The chance to take down Iran’s nuclear program and possibly help bring about regime change will tempt Trump and the Iran hawks in his team − and the president-elect may well take it this year," analysts at geopolitical risks consultancy Eurasia Group wrote recently in their year-ahead forecast of global themes to watch.
"At some point over the next four years, barring an unlikely diplomatic breakthrough, he most likely will."