The White House reacted angrily Monday after a report revealed Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, has been privately texting Iranian officials in the hopes of resuming peace negotiations — but the texts have been ignored.
While Trump has maintained that Iranian officials are pushing for negotiations to resume, saying as recently as Sunday night that they “want to negotiate badly,” a report Monday from Drop Site News would seem to suggest otherwise.
“Behind the scenes, it is the Trump administration that has been asking for talks,” wrote Drop Site News’ Jeremy Scahill in the outlet’s report.
“Two Iranian officials told Drop Site that Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff personally sent messages to officials in Tehran, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, last week exploring possibilities for resuming negotiations. Iran has not replied to Witkoff. The Iranian officials told Drop Site that Iran has also received messages from the White House via third countries.”
Drop Site News spoke with a person it described as a “senior Iranian official” who revealed that Witkoff had, on multiple occasions, attempted to restart peace talks with Tehran over the last week. That official, speaking with Drop Site News on the condition of anonymity, said that “Iran has once again closed the window for any direct negotiations.”
Araghchi has cited two past instances in which they were attacked by surprise during negotiations by either the United States or Israel as reason for refusing to restart talks. Iran was attacked last summer amid negotiations by the United States, and again late last month by both the United States and Israel after Trump first authorized Operation Epic Fury.
When asked to comment on the allegation that Witkoff has been texting Iranian leadership, a White House spokesperson erupted at Drop Site News, calling the outlet “abhorrent.”
“The radical, left-wing Drop Site News is clearly carrying water for the Iranian terrorist regime – and reports like these based on pure fiction and citing unnamed anonymous sources should be discarded immediately,” the White House spokesperson told Drop Site News.
“Iran feeds this fake news media outlet propaganda and they publish it as fact, which is abhorrent, America Last behavior. Operation Epic Fury will continue unabated until President Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, determines that the goals of Operation Epic Fury, including for Iran to no longer pose a military threat, have been fully realized.”