Trump says U.S. could have ‘direct talks’ with Iran as strikes on Houthis proceed
Representatives for the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct extended diplomatic talks on Saturday, restarting a dialogue over the Iranian nuclear weapons program between the two nations.
Trump claimed that “direct talks” would occur Saturday between Washington and Tehran during a Monday Oval Office media availability alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following bilateral discussions between the two leaders.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran … it’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious. And the obvious is not something that I want to be involved with, or, frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it. So we’re going to see if we can avoid it, but it’s getting to be very dangerous territory. And hopefully those talks will be successful,” said Trump.
He added that it was in Tehran’s “best interest” for the talks to be “successful.”
Asked to elaborate further on the announcement, Trump said American and Iranian representatives would have “a very big meeting on Saturday” and contrasted the talks with previous negotiations in which the U.S. went through intermediaries on account of the lack of diplomatic relations between Washington and Tehran, having been formally severed since April 1980.
“Maybe a deal is going to be made that’d be great. That’d be …really great for Iran, I can tell you that,” Trump said. “But hopefully we’re not going to have to get into that — we’re meeting, very importantly, on Saturday, at almost the highest level, and we’ll see how it works out.”
Trump declined to tell reporters where the talks would take place but described them as being “top level” while threatening “great danger” for Iran if the talks are unsuccessful because Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
“If the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it’ll be a very bad day for Iran,” he said.
But Iranian officials contradicted the US president in a statement hours later. The talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted, would take place in Oman and occur indirectly.
“Iran and the United States will meet in Oman on Saturday for indirect high-level talks. It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court,” Araghchi said.
A direct meeting between US and Iranian principals or their respective deputies would mark the first negotiations of such kind between the US and Iran since the Obama era.
Iranian and American officials communicated through intermediaries, typically the Sultanate of Oman, throughout Trump’s first term in office as well as during the four years of Joe Biden’s presidency, as both presidents went their respective terms without achieving a formal agreement aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear agenda.
The previous Trump presidency was marked by the departure of the United States from the JCPOA, a multi-lateral agreement between Washington, Tehran, and several European countries aimed at allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium for civilian energy programs while placing restrictions on Iranian facilities that would prevent the creation of weapons-grade nuclear material. The US, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, accused Iran repeatedly of violating the “spirit” of the deal before Trump pulled the US out entirely.
Just Sunday, Araghchi described such potential talks as “meaningless” in a statement carried by several news networks. The New York Times’s Farnaz Fassihi quoted three Iranian officials as saying separately Monday afternoon that the first round of talks Saturday in Oman would be “indirect”, but with the possibility of reaching direct negotiations if the initial talks went well.
In an April 1 tweet, Araghchi also denied that there was any proof for alleged Iranian violations of the JCPOA. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and others had previously signaled for months that direct US-Iran talks would not resume until Washington backed off from its “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign and ceased making threats.
Axios correspondent Barak Ravid quoted one unnamed senior Israeli official saying Monday that Netanyahu planned to press Trump on support for the Israeli line — a demand for a full dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, including for civilian energy purposes.
Monday’s announcement follows a threat issued by the president one week ago, warning that the US would launch military strikes against Iranian forces unless a “deal” between the US and Iran were reached.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” said the US president in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker. “It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
Trump has also ramped up pressure on Iran over the continued multinational conflict between the Houthis based in Yemen and a multinational coalition aimed at driving them out. US forces resumed airstrikes against Houthi targets this year, but it remains unclear how effective those attacks have been at militarily degrading Houthi forces, which resumed their own strikes earlier this year in solidarity with Hamas militants in Gaza after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel’s government broke down.
In a social media post, Trump warned Iran’s government that responsibility for continued aggression against US vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi militants would be laid at Tehran’s feet.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt put the total number of US airstrikes against Houthi targets at more than 200 this past week, as US forces once again carried out a strike that killed several people near the port city of Hodeida.
“Iran is incredibly weakened as a result of these attacks, and we have seen they have taken out Houthi leaders,” Leavitt said. “They’ve taken out critical members who were launching strikes on naval ships and on commercial vessels and this operation will not stop until the freedom of navigation in this region is restored.”
Source: independent.co.uk
