Why Iran's Supreme Leader came around to nuclear talks with US

It was a closely held, urgent meeting.

Iran was pondering a response to President Donald Trump's letter seeking nuclear negotiations. So the country's president, as well as the heads of the judiciary and parliament huddled with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, last month, according to two senior Iranian officials familiar with the meeting.

Khamenei had publicly and repeatedly banned engaging with Washington, calling it unwise and idiotic. The senior officials, in an unusual coordinated effort, urged him to change course, said the two officials, who asked not to be named to discuss sensitive issues.

The message to Khamenei was blunt: Allow Iran to negotiate with Washington, even directly if necessary, because otherwise the Islamic Republic's rule could be toppled.

The country was already dealing with an economy in shambles, a currency plunging against the dollar and shortages of gas, electricity and water. The threat of war with the United States and Israel was extremely serious, the officials warned. If Iran refused talks or if the negotiations failed, the officials told Khamenei, military strikes on Iran's two main nuclear sites, Natanz and Fordow, would be inevitable.

Iran would then be forced to retaliate, risking a wider war, a scenario that could further damage the economy and spark domestic unrest, including protests and strikes, the officials said. Fighting on two fronts posed an existential threat to the regime, they added.

At the end of the hourslong meeting, Khamenei relented. He granted his permission for talks, first indirect, through an intermediary, and then, if things proceeded well, for direct talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators, the two officials said.

On March 28, Iran sent a formal reply to Trump's letter signaling its readiness for negotiations.

On Saturday, Iran and the United States held the first round of talks in Oman. They were not expected to meet directly; each side was to sit in separate rooms, with Omani diplomats carrying messages back and forth. If the talks progress to face-to-face meetings, it would be a sign of a major concession by Iran, which has insisted it does not want to meet Americans directly. For both sides the stakes are huge.

"Mr. Khamenei's turnaround demonstrates his long-held core principle that 'preserving the regime is the most necessary of the necessities,'" said Hossein Mousavian, a former diplomat who served on Iran's nuclear negotiating team on a 2015 deal and is now a visiting fellow at Princeton University.

Trump, speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, once again affirmed that he would take military action against Iran "if necessary, absolutely," if it fails to negotiate.

"I'm not asking for much, they can't have a nuclear weapon," he said, adding, "I want them to thrive. I want Iran to be great."

The talks come against the backdrop of a rapidly changing world order, from regional changes, to global tariffs and shifting alliances. The Iranian-backed militias in the region, Hamas and Hezbollah, have been crippled by Israel, and Iran lost a key ally in Syria after President Bashar Assad's fall in December.

Iran's powerful allies, Russia and China, have also encouraged Iran to resolve its nuclear standoff with the United States through negotiations. The three countries have held two meetings in Beijing and Moscow recently to discuss Iran's nuclear program.

Since Trump took office in January, Iranian newspapers and pundits have expressed concern about whether the country's carefully cultivated alliance with Russia and China was at risk.

The Trump administration has engaged directly with Russia's government on the Ukraine war and Iran. Trump has also pressured China to stop buying Iran's sanctioned oil and penalized Chinese refineries that purchase oil from Iran.

Homayoun Falakshahi, head of the crude oil team at Kpler, a commodity data analytics firm, said that since January, Iran exported about 1.6 million barrels a day of crude oil, mostly to China. His firm projects a drop of nearly half a million barrels a day if the United States expands its sanctions on China. That would have a big effect on Iran's economy.

Economic concerns were part of the discussion as senior officials urged Khamenei to allow negotiations.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and current conservative head of parliament, told Khamenei that a war combined with a domestic economic implosion could quickly get out of control, according to the two senior officials who spoke to The New York Times about the meeting.

President Masoud Pezeshkian told Khamenei that managing the country through its current crises was not tenable, the officials said. The government has announced new power cuts for Tehran, the capital, this month, and for factories, threatening production lines. In the central city of Yazd, severe water shortages forced the closure of schools and government offices for two days this week.

On Saturday, Iran was represented by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the United States by the special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

While the goals of the initial meeting are modest -- to agree on a framework for negotiations and a timeline -- if it goes well, a meeting between Araghchi and Witkoff would be possible, the Iranian officials said.

The clock is ticking on Iran's nuclear program. Iran is now far closer to being able to produce a weapon than it was in 2018, when Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

After Trump exited that deal and imposed sanctions, Iran also moved to abandon some of its obligations under the deal, which curbed its uranium enrichment levels at 3.5% and advanced to 60%.

Iran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, though U.S. intelligence concluded this year that Iran was exploring a faster, if cruder, route to a weapon if it chose to pursue one. The United Nations atomic agency, which monitors the nuclear sites, has said it has not found evidence of weaponization.

Trump has repeatedly said that the earlier deal was insufficient and that he wants a broader agreement.

For his part, Khamenei has set some conditions and parameters for talks, according to three Iranian officials. He has given the greenlight to discuss the nuclear program -- including strict monitoring mechanisms and significant reduction of the enrichment of uranium. But he said that Iran's missiles are part of the country's self-defense and are off limits, the officials said.

Mousavian, the former nuclear negotiator, said Iran would never agree to demands by Washington and Israel to completely dismantle its nuclear program, adding that such a demand would be a "deal-breaker."

Iran is also open to discussing its regional policies and support for militant groups, the officials said, and would indicate a willingness to use its influence to defuse regional tensions, including with the Houthis in Yemen.

Khamenei appointed several of his top advisers and confidants -- Kamal Kharazi on foreign policy, Ali Larijani on strategy and Mohammad Forouzandeh on military matters -- to manage negotiations with Washington in close coordination with the Foreign Ministry, four Iranian officials said.

In another sign of a softening of Iran's position, Pezeshkian said Wednesday in a public speech that Khamenei was open to allowing American businesses and investments to enter Iran's largely untapped market.

The news of Saturday's talks dominated the front pages of Iranian newspapers this past week, and even the economy showed a small sign of a boost. The price of Iran's currency, the rial, rallied slightly against the dollar on the black market. And Iran's stock market opened with a surge for many companies.

Ali Vaez, the Iran director of the Crisis Group, an independent research group, said that, with Trump, Iran has a unique opportunity for a lasting deal with the United States and the potential to resolve a diplomatic rift nearly five decades long. Trump's influence over Israel and the Republican Party, which has traditionally opposed a deal with Iran, would give any potential deal more weight.

"Time is too short, the stakes are too high, and the issues are too complicated for diplomacy to have a chance without the two key protagonists talking to each other," Vaez said.