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Iran: No Signs Trump Administration Is Serious about Holding Talks

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei speaks to reporters in Tehran. (Iran Foreign Ministry)
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei speaks to reporters in Tehran. (Iran Foreign Ministry)
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Iran: No Signs Trump Administration Is Serious about Holding Talks

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei speaks to reporters in Tehran. (Iran Foreign Ministry)
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei speaks to reporters in Tehran. (Iran Foreign Ministry)

Iran on Monday said it doubts the US was serious about conducting negotiations, asserting that it will defend its nuclear program and will not allow any compromise on the matter.

Speaking at a weekly press conference on Monday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the US statements cannot be taken seriously. “You cannot threaten Iran on one hand and claim to support dialogue on the other hand,” he said, according to the Mehr news agency.

US President Donald Trump has expressed an openness to a deal with Tehran to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon, but he said Israel will likely attempt to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In response, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said last week that if Iran’s enemies strike a hundred nuclear facilities, his country will build a thousand other ones.

US intelligence agencies have recently concluded that Israel is considering “significant strikes” on Iran's nuclear facilities in the first six months of 2025, taking advantage of Iran’s weakened state.

Analysts say Tehran will be forced to negotiate with Trump, with the downfall of its key ally, the Assad regime in Syria, and the severe weakening of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Jerusalem and said their countries were determined to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its influence in the Middle East.

Asked whether the Trump administration supports an Israeli strike on Iran, Rubio told CBS News: “Israel will always have to act in what they believe is their national interest and their national defense.”

And whether Washington was reaching out to Tehran, he replied: “I will say that we don't have any outreach from Iran. We haven't seen any. There's been zero outreach or interest to date from Iran about any negotiated deal.”

Earlier, US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz said Trump is absolutely serious about preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, adding that “all options are on the table.”

Waltz told Fox News on Sunday that Trump is willing to engage in talks with Tehran only on condition that it fully abandon its nuclear program.

Responding to Waltz’ comments, Baghaei said: “Iran's peaceful nuclear program is ongoing, and has been for the last three decades, based on Iran's rights as a member in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons... definitely we will not show any weakness in this regard.”

“Threatening others is a clear violation of international law and the United Nations Charter,” he added, saying that Israel and the US “cannot do anything” to hurt Iran.

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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)

A huge power outage hit large parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday, paralyzing traffic, grounding flights, trapping people in elevators and leaving power operators scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.

Some hospitals halted routine work and the two countries' governments convened emergency cabinet meetings, with officials initially saying a possible cyber-attack could not be ruled out. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe, and the cause could not immediately be established.

Reuters witnesses said power had started returning to the Basque country and Barcelona areas of Spain in the early afternoon, a few hours after the outage began. It was not clear when power might be more widely restored.

Hospitals in Madrid and Cataluna in Spain suspended all routine medical work but were still attending to critical patients, using backup generators. Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down and retail businesses shut.

The Bank of Spain said electronic banking was functioning "adequately" on backup systems, though residents also reported ATM screens had gone blank.

"I'm in a data center, and everything has gone off. All the alarms popped up, and now we're with the groups, waiting to find out what happened," said Barcelona resident and engineer Jose Maria Espejo, 40.

In a video posted on X, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida urged city residents to minimize their journeys and stay where they were, adding: "It is essential that the emergency services can circulate."

In Portugal, water supplier EPAL said water supplies could also be disrupted, and queues formed at stores by people rushing to purchase emergency supplies like gaslights, generators and batteries.

The main Portuguese electricity utility, EDP, said it had told customers it had no forecast for when the energy supply would be "normalized", Publico newspaper said. It warned it could take several hours.

Parts of France also suffered a brief outage. RTE, the French grid operator, said it had moved to supplement power to some parts of northern Spain after the outage hit.

Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams in Madrid city center as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.

Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.

One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.

Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.

Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.

Lisbon's subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.

A source at Portugal's TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.

Such widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.

In 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and as far as Morocco.