Iran's top security official, Ali Larijani, has sought to reopen nuclear negotiations with the United States through Omani mediators, officials told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday night.
The report said that Larijani’s gesture followed the joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran on the weekend.
Larijani, who is the Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, denied the report and stressed, “We will not negotiate with the United States."
Larijani has gained influence in the Islamic Republic following the elimination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
He appeared in a television interview early on Sunday morning and vowed retaliation against the US for eliminating Khamenei.
"The passing of a great personality has wounded the hearts of all of us," Larijani said, adding that, "Americans should know that by stabbing the hearts of the Iranian nation, their hearts will be stabbed."
"What they did in a cruel way towards the Iranian leadership has angered the people so much that they will never achieve their goals," he said.
The US and Iran held two rounds of talks, mediated by Oman, on Iran’s nuclear program and had met as recently as Thursday in Geneva, but those talks failed to gain traction, leading President Donald Trump to authorize the strikes on Iran.
Trump told the Daily Mail on Sunday he remains open to renewed talks with Iran, though he questioned the timing of any outreach.
“I don’t know," Trump said when asked whether negotiations would resume soon. “They want to, they want to talk, but I said, ‘You should have talked last week, not this week.’"