Among the senior Iranian officials who were killed in Israel’s initial wave of airstrikes on Iran on Friday was Ali Shamkhani, a senior advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who wanted to strike a nuclear deal with the US.
In an interview with NBC News in May, Shamkhani said Iran was willing to recommit to its pledge to never build a nuclear weapon, reduce uranium enrichment to low levels, and get rid of its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium in exchange for sanctions relief from the US.
“It’s still possible. If the Americans act as they say, for sure we can have better relations,” Shamkhani said at the time. “It can lead to a better situation in the near future.”
President Trump shared the NBC News interview on his Truth Social account, suggesting that he was open to such a deal. But the president and his administration continued to demand that Tehran eliminate its nuclear enrichment program altogether, a condition Iran made clear was a non-starter.
On June 5, Shamkhani reaffirmed that Iran wouldn’t give up its nuclear enrichment program and said Iran was preparing its counter-proposal to the US. Another round of US-Iran nuclear negotiations was supposed to be held on Sunday, but they’ve been canceled in the wake of the US-backed Israeli attack on Iran, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched on Friday.
Trump celebrated the death of high-level Iranian officials following the initial wave of Israeli airstrikes. “Certain Iranian hardliner’s spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump has backed Israel’s strikes on Iran even though his intelligence agencies have affirmed that there’s no evidence Tehran is working toward a nuclear weapon. Iranian officials have said they would further advance their nuclear program in response to Israeli or US aggression.
