Iran and the State Department: Iran is ready to negotiate with the United States in the sixth round of talks on Iran’s nuclear program, which Washington had not done before
Iran appeared to adopt an ambiguous stance on Saturday toward further negotiations with the United States over the future of its nuclear program, calling the talks “meaningless” while also suggesting that a final decision on whether to participate was still pending.
The sixth round of talks between Iran and the US was due to take place in Muscat, the capital of Oman. It was thrown into question by the Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities that started on Friday and continued on Saturday.
Emaraeil Baghaei, spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, was quoted as saying that it was not clear what decision would be made on Sunday.
That echoed what the state news media had said after the initial round of Israeli attacks on Friday, namely that the Islamic Republic was suspending its participation in the talks “until further notice.”
He said that because of the situation, it would be meaningless to engage in dialogue with the party that was the most supportive of the Iranian nation.
Ali Shamkhani, a former secretary of the Supreme National Council, was one of the senior Iranian figures killed by Israel.
In his previous statement, Mr. Baghaei had also accused Washington of undermining the talks. The United States acted in a way that makes dialogue pointless, he said, accusing Washington of giving Israel its consent to attack.
“Iran’s leadership will be wise to negotiate at this time,” McCoy Pitt, a senior State Department official, said in a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Friday focused on the crisis.
Mr. Trump has written on social media that even more brutal attacks are in store for Iran if it does not make a deal. Iran denies attempting to develop nuclear weapons.
A quick deal now that would give up enrichment would be seen as a surrender, said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who served in the State Department during the Obama administration. It could make the Iranian government more vulnerable. “They won’t give up enrichment, not this easily,” he said. They are not going to give up.
At the same time, Mr. Trump, who has said he knew about the Israeli attack beforehand, has done nothing in public to restrain the Israelis. When Washington announced last week that the talks would continue on Sunday, it is not clear whether it knew when Israel would attack, but the Iranians are convinced that Washington was complicit in trying to fool them into believing that any Israeli attack would come afterward.
Mr. Trump clearly sees the war as a form of diplomacy. He wrote that two months ago he gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to make a deal. They should have done it! Today is day 61. They just couldn’t get there after I told them what to do. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
If a deal is struck that allows Iran to enrich uranium Mr. Netanyahu believes that Iran would be a nuclear-armed nation in the future. He has apparently judged that a U.S.-Iran deal would have kept him from his goal of destroying Iran’s nuclear program, and, perhaps, he hopes, bringing about the fall of the Islamic Republic.
Mr. Trump has refused to join the objective of destroying Iran’s nuclear program without American involvement.