RSF condemns mass VOA layoffs, warns journalists could face deportation

“This failed model, where Arab states are told they can’t survive ten days without US support, is being imposed again,” Khamenei said. “But it will collapse, and America will leave this region.”

Khamenei said Washington was promoting a security structure that keeps regional countries reliant on foreign protection. “The US wants these countries unable to function without it — that’s the message in their behavior and their proposals,” he said.

He also accused the United States of fueling instability and violence. “The US has used its power to massacre in Gaza, to stoke war wherever possible, and to arm its mercenaries,” he said, describing Israel as “a malignant cancer that must and will be uprooted.”

Khamenei says Trump’s rhetoric ‘shames America’

Khamenei also condemned US President Donald Trump’s remarks during his recent visit to the region.

“Some of what the US president said during this trip doesn’t even merit a reply,” he said in a meeting with teachers in Tehran. “The level of discourse is so low it brings shame to the speaker and to the American nation.”

Trump, during a regional tour that included Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, called for a tougher nuclear agreement with Iran and accused its leadership of spreading instability.

Speaking Tuesday in Riyadh, he said, “The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran, which has caused unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen and beyond.”

Trump also mocked Iran’s economic and environmental problems, contrasting its decline with the development of its Persian Gulf neighbors.

“While you have been constructing the world's tallest skyscrapers in Jeddah and Dubai, Tehran's 1979 landmarks are collapsing into rubble,” he said. “[Iran’s] corrupt water mafia… causes droughts and empty riverbeds. They get rich.”

“We are not seeking war. We believe in negotiations and dialogue,” Pezeshkian said at a military ceremony in Tehran. “But we are not afraid of threats and we will never retreat from our legal rights.”

Pezeshkian criticized US President Donald Trump for sending what he called contradictory messages. “He talks of peace while threatening us with advanced weapons. No one but him believes these contradictions,” Pezeshkian said.

The president added that Iran would stand firm. “They assassinate our scientists and accuse us of terrorism. But we are the victims of terror,” he said. “They should not expect us to give up our military and nuclear achievements under pressure.”

Separately, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran remains committed to peaceful nuclear development under the Non-Proliferation Treaty but will not negotiate away its right to enrichment.

“Iran is ready to build trust about the peaceful nature of its program, but cannot compromise on the legal and inalienable right to enrichment,” Araghchi said at a meeting with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. He added that Iran had “paid a heavy price” to preserve this right and would not accept restrictions as a long-standing NPT signatory.

Araghchi also criticized what he called inconsistent messages from US officials, saying they had complicated negotiations and undermined trust. “The Americans change their positions frequently and face pressure from war-driven lobbies,” he said. “This is their internal issue, but Iran will stay focused on its lawful and principled position.”

“There’s not plenty of time,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier. “We’re going to have a solution one way or the other. It’s either going to be violent or non-violent. And I far prefer non-violent.”

“I don’t want it to be a violent thing, but they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” he added. “I know so many Iranians from New York, from Washington, from a different place. These are great people. You know, they have to view them as people.”

Trump said Iran appears interested in engaging. “Iran wants to trade with us, okay, if you can believe that. And I’m okay with it. I’m using trade to settle scores and to make peace,” he said. “I’ve told Iran, we make a deal, you're going to be really... you’re going to be very happy.”

He also questioned why Iran would pursue nuclear energy given its vast oil reserves. “When you have unlimited amounts of oil and gas, why are you putting up nuclear civil?” he said. “If you’re sitting on one of the largest piles of oil in the world, why?”

Trump says Iran got US proposal

Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters that Iran had received a formal US proposal for a nuclear agreement and warned Tehran not to delay. “They have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad—something bad's going to happen,” he said.

Axios reported Thursday that the written proposal was delivered during the fourth round of indirect talks between US and Iranian officials last Sunday in Muscat, Oman. The document, carried by White House envoy Steve Witkoff, reportedly outlines terms for a monitored civilian nuclear program.

According to the report, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi took the proposal back to Tehran for review by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials. U.S. and diplomatic sources described the offer as the first formal one from the Trump administration since talks began in April.

Iran, however, denied receiving any proposal. Araghchi wrote on X that no such document had been delivered and reaffirmed Iran’s position on uranium enrichment.

“The messaging we—and the world—continue to receive is confusing and contradictory,” Araghchi said. “Mark my words: there is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to enrichment for peaceful purposes.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking Thursday from Turkey, said diplomacy remains on the table but emphasized that the decision ultimately lies with Iran’s Supreme Leader.

“I hope he chooses the path of peace and prosperity, not a destructive path,” Rubio said.

“They have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad—something bad's going to happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving the United Arab Emirates.

Axios reported Thursday that the written proposal was delivered during the fourth round of indirect talks between US and Iranian officials last Sunday in Muscat, Oman. It was the first formal offer made by the Trump administration since negotiations began in April, Axios cited US and diplomatic sources saying.

The document, handed over by White House envoy Steve Witkoff, outlines terms for a civilian nuclear program, with specific provisions for international monitoring and verification.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly took the proposal back to Tehran for review by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and other senior officials.

Witkoff described the proposal as “elegant” and “very big” in a recent briefing to the United Nations Security Council, according to Axios, but acknowledged that more work was needed. A fifth round of talks has not yet been scheduled.

Iran has responded positively in public statements. Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Khamenei told NBC News that Tehran is ready to stop enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, reduce its stockpiles and accept inspections—if the United States lifts all sanctions.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking Thursday from Turkey, said the diplomatic window remains open but warned the decision ultimately rests with Iran’s leadership.

“In the end, the decision lies in the hands of one person, and that's the Supreme Leader in Iran, and I hope he chooses the path of peace and prosperity, not a destructive path,” Rubio told reporters.

President Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia on May 13 on the first leg of a four-day, three-country trip to the Middle East that included stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The choice of Saudi Arabia for the first state visit of Trump’s second term mirrored that of his first, except this time he did not go to Israel, signaling that the administration is doubling down on its Arabian peninsula partners as key supporters of US regional interests.

Iran was naturally not on the itinerary but ever-present in Trump’s public statements, with the president using a characteristic blend of carrot-and-stick which urged Iranian leaders to take a “new and better path” and warned of “massive maximum pressure” if Tehran “rejects this olive branch.”

Trump expressed his desire to reach a deal with Iran on many occasions, even hinting that a deal was almost agreed. For that to happen, however, Tehran "must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” he added.

Later, aboard Air Force One, Trump told reporters that Iran had to “make the right decision” about its nuclear program because “something’s going to happen one way or the other” and "we’ll either do it friendly or we’ll do it very unfriendly.”

Arab, Iranian audiences

There are various takeaways for leaders in Iran as well as in its neighboring Arab countries, from Trump’s commentary.

For the latter, Trump’s demand that Iran end its sponsorship of terror and involvement in proxy wars will be welcomed as a signal that any agreement with Tehran might not be narrowly confined to its nuclear program alone, as was the case with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015.

For leaders in Riyadh, Doha and Abu Dhabi - not to mention in Tel Aviv -it was Iran’s regional activities that were as much a priority as its nuclear program, and their exclusion from the negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal caused alarm in the region.

However, any such optimism in regional corridors of power may be tempered by concern that the president’s unconventional approach to deal-making may create openings for an agreement that gives Trump the optics he desires at the expense of nuts-and-bolts details on specific Iranian commitments.

Deals, details and differences

Comments by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s chief negotiator and one of his closest confidants, in podcast and other appearances, have not given the impression of a details-focused approach to diplomacy, whether in terms of Russia and Ukraine or Iran.

Witkoff and other members of the Trump administration have also sent mixed messages about whether Iran would be able to enrich uranium in any agreement, reinforcing concerns by domestic and regional critics of US engagement with Iran that a new deal may be worse than no deal.

For the leadership in Tehran, beset by economic challenges, energy shortages and geopolitical setbacks that left its regional "Axis of Resistance" weakened, the optics of Trump’s regional procession offer glimpses of opportunity.

The fact that Trump met with Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Riyadh and declared that sanctions on Syria would be lifted was further illustration that Trump is transactional rather than ideological, and willing to take decisions that break the mold of conventional American policy thinking.

This was underscored in Trump’s remarks in Riyadh on May 13 when he slammed the failures of generations of western interventionists and neocons in the Middle East who “told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves” and, he argued, did far more damage than good.

In making these comments and receiving al-Sharaa, Trump has shown himself willing to break free of traditional constraints on US policymaking in the region, at least on the surface, and this may yet extend to Iran.

Unclear outlook

There are nevertheless multiple uncertainties for Iranian officials as they begin to digest the outcomes of Trump’s visit to the Middle East and assess the implications, both short- and long-term, for Tehran.

The plethora of major deals signed in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE have cemented these countries’ deep and longstanding ties with the US across the defense and security, economic, and energy spectrum.

Any concerns in the region of US disengagement from the Middle East may be dissipated by the sight of Trump bestowing such significance on the region, in stark contrast to the disdain with which the administration has treated its formal allies in Europe and North America.

And yet, if Trump is to reap the benefits of the hundreds of billions of dollars of planned investments into the US, he will likely return from his trip with a conviction that the pledges, and the returns, require stability and would be jeopardized by any conflict with Iran.

This not only plays into the de-risking and de-escalatory approach that Iran's energy-rich Arab neighbors have taken since 2020 but may also fortify Trump’s desire to burnish his credentials as a peacemaker in the explosive region.