UAE official delivers to Iran letter from Trump urging nuclear talks
Anwar Gargash, Emirati diplomatic adviser, meets with Iranian FM Araghchi, a day after Iranian president said Trump can ‘do whatever the hell you want’

DUBAI — US President Donald Trump’s letter to Iran’s clerical establishment has been delivered by Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson and state media said on Wednesday.
Trump said last week that he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal, prompting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to respond that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations.
On Tuesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate when threatened, telling Trump he could “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reported.
Gargash met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on Wednesday, Iranian state media said. Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei did not give details about the meeting.
The UAE, one of Washington’s key Middle East security partners and host to US troops, also maintains ties with Tehran. Despite past tensions, business and trade links between the two countries have remained strong, with Dubai serving as a key commercial hub for Iran for more than a century.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports towards zero.
In 2018, Trump exited Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled its economy. Tehran reacted a year later by violating the deal’s nuclear curbs.

Iran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity — close to the roughly 90% weapons-grade level — has jumped, the International Atomic Energy Agency said late last month.
Separately, Araghchi questioned a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday about Iran’s nuclear program, state media reported.
The gathering marked a “new and bizarre process that puts into question the goodwill of states requesting it,” he said.
Six of the council’s 15 members — France, Greece, Panama, South Korea, Britain and the US — requested the meeting over Iran’s expansion of its stock of close to weapons-grade uranium.
Araghchi said that Iran would soon have a fifth round of talks with the European powers forming part of the nuclear deal — France, Britain and Germany — and confirmed a meeting in Beijing on Friday with the other members, Russia and China.
“Our talks with Europeans have been ongoing and will continue… however, any decision by the UN Security Council or board of governors of the UN nuclear watchdog to pressure us will put under question the legitimacy of these talks,” Araghchi said, according to state media.