TEHRAN — Recent remarks from the United States indicating a willingness to pursue diplomacy are nothing more than a “deception plan,” a senior political source told the Tehran Times, adding that Tehran cannot truly trust any U.S. messages conveyed through intermediaries.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said that while Washington has made efforts to initiate negotiations and transmit messages to the Islamic Republic, Iranian officials view these overtures as disingenuous.

“Efforts to negotiate and convey messages from the United States to Tehran are a deceptive scheme, and Iran has no confidence in these messages,” the source said.

The source added that the overall U.S. approach toward Iran remains unchanged. “The enemy’s aggressive posture against Iran has not changed, and we are also observing signs of their attempts to carry out new harassing or ground operations,” the source said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that he had postponed plans to attack Iran’s power plants because the two sides had held “successful” and “productive” negotiations about ending “all hostilities” in West Asia. Iranian officials rejected the claim the same day, saying Trump’s remarks were aimed at calming oil markets, which were thrown into disarray after Iran restricted navigation through the Strait of Hormuz in response to ongoing U.S.-Israeli aggression. Iran has also been carrying out routine missile and drone operations against U.S. bases in at least seven regional countries as well as Israeli positions in the occupied territories. Analysts say Washington and Tel Aviv believed they could make the Iranian government collapse within a few days by assassinating the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and that they had not taken Iran’s prior warnings of retaliation seriously.

Pakistan is one of the countries that has offered to host potential peace talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the ongoing war, now in its fourth week. According to the source, the Trump administration had reached out to Tehran through Pakistan but was met with a "firm" response.

“Trump was trying to gauge Iran’s willingness to stop the war through a Pakistani intermediary, but he was met with a firm and coordinated response,” the source said, without providing details about the response.

Tehran and Washington were in the midst of nuclear negotiations when the U.S. and Israel began their war against Iran on February 28. The two regimes also attacked Iran in the middle of nuclear negotiations back in June 2025. While Iranians largely blame Trump for not being serious about diplomacy, they also believe that Trump’s negotiators—U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—played a role in the president’s decision to bomb the negotiating table. Both figures have been revealed to have close ties to the Israeli regime, particularly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“None of Trump’s previous envoys have been deemed worthy of exchanging messages from the Iranian side,” the source stated.