“If they don’t make a deal,” President Trump said in a phone interview with NBC News, “there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

However, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its nuclear program in a statement Sunday, Iran’s first response to a letter Trump sent to its supreme leader.

Iran's Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday that the country has sent its official response through Oman to a letter from US President Donald Trump seeking nuclear talks. According to Araghchi, Iran insisted on no direct negotiation with the United States, particularly under the so-called "maximum pressure" campaign and military threats against Tehran, but noted that indirect negotiations could continue as in the past.