Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Sunday rebuked the idea of direct negotiations with US President Donald Trump’s administration over its nuclear program. 

Pezeshkian: US must ‘build trust’ after earlier breached promises 

“We responded to the US president’s letter via Oman and rejected the option of direct talks, but we are open to indirect negotiations,” Pezeshkian said during a sitdown with his cabinet broadcast on Iranian TV. 

“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian said. “They must prove that they can build trust.”

During Trump’s first term in 2018, he pulled the US out of a nuclear agreement with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

That deal provided sanctions relief for Iran, with the Iranian government in exchange curbing its nuclear program and allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to periodically view its enrichment sites. France, Germany, Russia, the UK and the EU are some of the other parties signed onto the JCPOA.   

Trump vows ‘bombing’ if no new Iran nuclear deal 

Trump sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei earlier this month, urging Iran to reach a new nuclear deal with the US in his second term in the White House.   

In an interview with US broadcaster NBC News, Trump made new threats towards Iran if there is no new nuclear agreement with the US.

“If they don’t make a deal,” Trump told the outlet on Saturday evening, referring to Iran. “There will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”

Trump claimed that representatives from the US and Iran are “talking” on the matter.  

The Trump administration has a “maximum pressure” approach towards Iran, which aims to both economically and politically isolate Tehran.

The Trump administration has also vowed to crack down on so-called Iranian proxies in the Middle East region, with the US currently attacking the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. 

Edited by: Roshni Majumdar

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Dutch pension funds are set to plough tens of billions of euros into risky assets in Europe, as their move to a system without fixed benefits supports the continent’s efforts to attract investment and bolster its defence sector.

Reforms being rolled out in the Netherlands could lead to its €2tn pensions industry — one of the largest in the world — boosting investment in private equity and credit investments by about 5 percentage points over the next five years, said the head of the biggest Dutch asset manager.

The “largest part” of the anticipated €100bn is expected to be deployed in Europe owing to “more attractive valuations” and a wish to have a “real-world impact”, Ronald Wuijster, chief executive of APG Asset Management, told the Financial Times.

He added that Dutch funds might be able to do “even more” to finance defence initiatives in the continent, saying that APG had already invested about €2bn in companies that contribute to the defence industry.

Wuijster’s comments came as the EU has been under pressure to raise defence investment, with former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi last year calling on the bloc to boost investments by €800bn annually to keep up with US and China. US President Donald Trump has also demanded governments shoulder a greater burden for Europe’s security.

“There used to be a penalty for private investments and for credit risk that is now diminishing, which increases the budget to take more risk,” Wuijster said.

He added that the reforms would allow investors to consider assets with “a slightly higher risk profile”, predicting an increase of “five-ish” percentage points in risky assets, as well as higher allocation to private assets and credit spreads. 

In 2023, Dutch senators passed a law to transition the country’s occupational pension system into a model in which pension funds no longer guarantee a fixed retirement income to members. The transition is expected to take place between 2025 and 2028.

The old defined benefit system pushed the schemes into liquid, low-risk assets such as government bonds by requiring pension funds to closely match assets with long-term pensions owed.

The funds will now be able to set target returns that can fluctuate with market movements, removing some liability driven constraints and increasing their risk appetite.

This was a significant step because “psychologically, it puts the funds closer to regular lifecycle investing . . . and on that measure, Dutch pensions are probably taking too little risk”, Wuijster said. 

ABP, which is responsible for the pensions of Dutch civil servants and is by far the largest fund managed by APG with €544bn of assets, expects to transition to the new system by 2027.

At the end of last year, just over a quarter of ABP’s assets were in private markets. About 40 per cent of its private equity exposure was in Europe, which also had 57 per cent of its global allocation in private credit.

Wuijster said this geographical balance could continue under the new system, and that the shift into private assets and credit would be “a very gradual process” taking place “over the next five years”.