Iran has told the US it is not trying to kill Trump

Iran sent a message to the Biden administration in October saying it was not trying to assassinate Donald J. Trump as Tehran sought to defuse rising tensions with Washington, U.S. officials said, as well as an Iranian official and an analyst.

The message, sent to Washington through an intermediary, came after a note from the Biden administration in September warning that the United States would investigate any Iranian attempt on the life of Mr Trump, then the Republican nominee for president regard as “an act of war.”

Since Mr. Trump won the Nov. 5 election, many Iranian former officials, experts and media outlets have publicly advocated that Tehran try to engage with the newly elected president and pursue a more conciliatory approach, despite promises from Mr. Trump. allies to resume a high-pressure campaign against Iran.

US officials have said Iran tried to kill Mr Trump in revenge for ordering the 2020 drone strike that killed Major General Qassim Suleimani, the commander in charge of Iran’s militias and proxy forces. The Justice Department issued two indictments that officials said were related to Iranian plots against Mr. Trump.

US officials have also accused Iran of plotting to kill other Trump administration figures.

Officials interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic messages.

The messaging was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The message from Iran reiterated Tehran’s claim that the killing of General Suleimani was a criminal act, the two US officials said. But it also said Iran did not want to kill Mr. Trump, according to the U.S. officials, an Iranian official and an Iranian analyst who talks to both sides.

The Iranians said the message to the United States indicated that Iran was seeking to avenge the killing of General Suleimani through international legal means.

The US officials said the Iranian message was not a letter from a specific official. But the Iranian official and analyst said it came from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations declined to comment on the exchange. But it said in a statement that Iran was determined to respond to the killing of General Suleimani “through legal and judicial channels.”

During the presidential campaign, US officials warned about Iran planned to kill Mr. Trump.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said last week that Iranian plotters had discussed a plan to kill 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 later charged with trying to hire a hitman to kill American politicians. Investigators believe Trump was among his potential targets.

Information about Iran’s intentions was provided to the Secret Service, which added counter-sniper teams to Mr. Trump’s protective detail ahead of the attempted assassination of him in July in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a lone gunman with no ties to Tehran. according to US officials.

Iran considered Mr. Trump 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, U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was growing more confident it could successfully target the former president.

That assessment of a growing threat, combined with the attempts on Mr. Trump’s life, prompted both an intensive security review and a diplomatic campaign to convince Iran that it was making a serious miscalculation, according to officials.

Elon Musk, who has become a close ally of Mr. Trump, met with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations on Monday at Mr. Musk’s request, the Iranians said — a sign that it is not just the lame-duck Democratic administration that is watching to avoid a direct clash, but also the Trump camp. The Iranians said the meeting with Ambassador Amir Saied Iravani, at an undisclosed location in New York City, was about defusing tensions between Iran and the United States under the Trump administration.

Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

The United States and Iran have not had official diplomatic relations since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, when 52 Americans were taken hostage in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held for over a year.

The Swiss Embassy in Tehran is the official diplomatic liaison between the two nations, but U.S. and Iranian officials have engaged in direct and indirect negotiations in recent years on a range of issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, regional tensions and prisoner exchanges.

The American and Iranian messages were sent via the Swiss, according to the Iranian official and the analyst.