In a stark contradiction of President Donald Trump’s claims that Iran is desperate to negotiate, Iranian officials are reportedly ignoring direct outreach from the Trump administration seeking a ceasefire, according to a bombshell report from Drop Site News.
Two Iranian officials told Drop Site that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, personally sent messages to Tehran, including to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, last week to explore possibilities for resuming negotiations. The White House has also reportedly reached out via third-party countries.
Iran hasn’t replied.
“The message here is clear: Iran has once again closed the window for any direct negotiations,” a senior Iranian official told Drop Site, explaining that the decision came from the country’s top authorities. “The authority to declare a ceasefire rests solely with the country’s Supreme Leader. It’s not something the foreign minister, or any other official or organization in Iran, would send messages about to a foreign party.”
The reporting directly undermines the narrative pushed by the Trump administration and amplified by some mainstream outlets that Tehran is on its back foot, begging for mercy.
In recent days, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has gone on the record repeatedly to shut down the notion that Iran is seeking an offramp.
In an interview with CBS News’ Face the Nation, which aired Sunday, Araghchi was unequivocal. “We never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never even asked for negotiation,” he said. “We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes”.
He reiterated that stance during the foreign ministry’s final press conference of the Iranian calendar year. “We don’t ask for a ceasefire, but this war must end in a way that our enemies never again think about repeating such attacks,” Araghchi said. “They now understand what kind of nation they are dealing with. Iran is ready to take the war wherever necessary.”
The foreign minister cited the Trump administration's bad faith as a key reason for refusing to engage. “We don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans, because we were talking with them when they decided to attack us, and that was for the second time,” he told CBS.
The battle over who is seeking peace has become a proxy war in the press. Less than an hour after Drop Site News published its report, Axios’ Barak Ravid published a piece citing a US official and a source with knowledge, claiming that Araghchi had sent text messages to Witkoff “focused on ending the war.” The US official claimed the outreach came from the Iranian side, but added that the US “is not talking” to Iran. Neither source spoke in detail about the content or the quantity of the alleged texts.
Araghchi immediately denied the Axios report, writing on X: “My last contact with Mr. Witkoff was prior to his employer’s decision to kill diplomacy with another illegal military attack on Iran. Any claim to the contrary appears geared solely to mislead oil traders and the public.”
A senior Iranian official who spoke to Drop Site explained the motive behind the competing narrative. “Many direct and indirect requests for a ceasefire have been coming from the US. Now that they’ve seen the Iranian side isn’t responding to those requests, they’re trying to make up for their embarrassment by twisting the narrative in the media,” the official said. “The responses that we provide to third-party countries for a ceasefire are being publicly presented by Trump as if they were his own positions.”
On The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian broke down why the administration’s framing is not only false, but extremely dangerous.
“I read the reporting of both,” Cenk said, comparing Drop Site News to Axios. “In Drop Site News, it was one piece of evidence after another after another—both from the Iranian side and the US side and the actual facts on the ground—to support their hypothesis that no, Iranians are not asking for a ceasefire. In fact, they won’t even return our calls for a ceasefire.”
Cenk pointed to the Axios report’s lack of sourcing and evidence. “Axios goes, ‘Yeah, bro. I talked to somebody in the White House and somebody in Israel, and they say that they want us to believe that the Iranians are begging for a ceasefire, so we printed it so we could lie to you guys and trick you into believing that this war is going to be easy.’ Oh, that’s really convincing,” he said sarcastically.
Ana noted the strategic reality on the ground. “Why would they want a ceasefire?” she asked, pointing to the fact that the US and Israel are running low on missile interceptors, while Iran has effectively choked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, with only 10% of ships now getting through.
But the most telling sign is Iran’s public taunting of the US to send in ground troops, a move that would play directly into Tehran’s strengths.
Cenk played a clip of an Iranian spokesperson directly trolling Trump. “A message to the president of the United States,” the spokesperson said. “The outcome of war cannot be determined by tweets. The result of a war is determined in the field. The very place where you and your forces do not dare to approach, and you can only talk about it in your tweets. It’s better to name this war as epic real instead of epic fury.”
“Right, so what they’re doing is they’re getting in our face,” Cenk said. “You could have different opinions about that, but what’s clear about it is they’re saying, ‘Please get on the ground.’ You don’t say this if you’re worried about America hitting you.”
Ana added historical context: “The Houthis have no air force, no real official navy. We beat them, right? No, we didn’t. They have a couple of dinghies, and we couldn’t beat them in Yemen. And the Saudis couldn’t beat them in Yemen.”
The administration has already deployed an additional 5,000 Marines to the region, raising fears of a ground invasion.
“If Israel would like to use their troops to fall into that trap, Israel can do whatever,” Cenk said. “Do what you want without our money, without our soldiers, and without our involvement. But they drag us into this mess anyway.”
