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The US officials said the Iranian message was not a letter from a specific official, but the Iranian official and analyst said it was from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the message exchange. But it said in a statement that Iran was committed to responding to Soleimani’s killing “through legal and judicial avenues.”
Iranian demonstrators hold up posters of the late Revolutionary Guard Qassem Soleimani.Credit: AP
During the presidential campaign, U.S. officials warned that Iran was plotting to kill Trump.
Federal prosecutors in New York said last week that Iranian plotters had discussed a plan to assassinate him, which Iran’s Foreign Ministry called baseless.
In July, Asif Raza Merchant, a Pakistani man who had visited Iran, was arrested in New York and was later charged with trying to hire a hit man to assassinate American politicians. Investigators believe his potential targets included Trump.
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Intelligence about Iran’s intentions was provided to the Secret Service, which added counter-sniper teams to Trump’s protective detail ahead of the attempted assassination attempt on him in July, in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a lone gunman with no ties to Tehran, according to US officials.
Iran had considered Trump to be a difficult target because of his Secret Service protection. But after the attempted assassination in Pennsylvania and another near Trump’s golf course in Florida, US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran grew more confident that the former president could be successfully targeted.
That assessment of a growing threat, combined with the attempts on Trump’s life, prompted both an intense security review and a diplomatic campaign to convince Iran that it was making a grave miscalculation, according to officials.
Iranians demonstrate in front of the former US embassy in Tehran on the 45th anniversary of the hostage crisis there.Credit: Getty Images
Elon Musk, who has become a close ally of Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, at Musk’s request, the Iranians said – a sign that it is not only the lame-duck Democratic administration that is looking to avoid a direct clash, but also the Trump camp. The Iranians said the meeting with Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, at a secret location in New York, was about defusing tensions between Iran and the US under the Trump administration.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
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The US and Iran have not had official diplomatic relations since Iran’s 1979 revolution, when 52 Americans were taken hostage in the US Embassy in Tehran, and held for more than a year.
The Swiss Embassy in Tehran is the official diplomatic liaison between the two nations, but US and Iranian officials have held direct and indirect negotiations in recent years on a host of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, regional tensions and swapping detainees.
The US and Iranian messages were sent through the Swiss, according to the Iranian official and the analyst.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.