Bets could hardly be higher for new nuclear conversations between the United States and plan for this weekend.
Israel, who considers Iran as an existential threat, and the United States see Iran as a dishonest regime with the intention of looking for weapons of mass destruction that will stop little to undermine their opponents.
Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership faces an choice between giving up its nuclear aspirations, which would probably do it more vulnerable in the long term, or continues along the path of nuclear development and dramatically increases the risk of an attack by Israel and the United States.
While Iran has always denied that he wants to develop nuclear weapons, the senior officials have repeatedly said that if he is attacked, this will change and will eventually push it towards the construction of a nuclear bomb.
President Donald Trump revealed the next negotiations in a surprise announcement on Monday while standing alongside the leader of Iran’s Archionemigo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While Trump promoted discussions as “direct” conversations with Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, quickly responded by saying that negotiations would be indirect, at least for now.
The White House has not answered the questions about discrepancy.
The indirect conversations would probably work as a “starting point and a communication bridge” to help both parties to understand the positions of others, according to Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi, an associated member in the Middle East and Africa program of northern Chatham House.
“It will probably be more maximalist than any monitoring conversation they may have,” he said. “We have to remember that there has been no direct commitment between the United States and Iran for a while.”
Hard talk
The American team is adopting a hard position as it enters conversations this weekend, with the United States broadcasting new sanctions on Wednesday.
Collecting about discussions in the Kingdom of the Gulf of Oman will be Trump’s threat that if the conversations do not produce results, “Iran will be in great danger.” Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if he refuses to reach an agreement in the future of his nuclear program.
The commitment to end Iran’s nuclear program is one that Trump has resumed from his first mandate, when he took the United States from the historical Iranian nuclear agreement 2015, officially known as the joint comprehensive action plan. According to the JCPOA, Iran agreed to dismantle much of its nuclear program and allow inspections of its facilities in exchange for sanctions.
Trump retired from the JCPOA because, he said, it was a “horrible unilateral treatment” that did not address the Tehran Balistic missile program or its proxies network throughout the region. The United States movement enraged the Iranian government after it had adhered to the terms signed with the Obama administration and another five world powers.
Saturday’s conversations also occur after the repeated warnings of Rafael Grossi, the head of the United Nations Nuclear Control Agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that Iran was “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium up to 60% purity, increasingly closer to the level of around 90% that constitutes a degree of weapons.
In an opinion article at the Washington Post, Araghchi said there was no evidence that Tehran had violated his commitment not to seek nuclear weapons. He was “willing to clarify our peaceful intention and take the necessary measures to calm any possible concern.”
Meanwhile, the conflict in the Gaza Strip that has consumed the Middle East during the last year has seen two of Iran’s key non -state allies in what is known as their resistance axis, Hamas and Hezbollah, severely weakened by Israeli forces, with Washington, with Washington, pointing more and more to Houthis in Yemen.
‘Very high price’
Richard Dearlove, former head of the British Intelligence Agency Mi6, told NBC News in an interview on Thursday that he believed that the Trump administration “would demand a very high price”, which will give up its entire nuclear program, both for energy and weapons.
“I think there is a final result for Trump and Israel that Iran should not have nuclear capacity,” he said.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a specialist in nuclear and security policies in the Middle East at Princeton University and former Iran spokesman in their nuclear negotiations with the West, said he did not believe that if the conversations this weekend could not produce such a result that the “immediate alternative would be the war.”
Trump, on the other hand, has offered little peace of mind, warning Monday: “If the conversations are not successful, I think it will be a very bad day to Iran.”
“Iran are definitely in a different situation from where I was, for example, in 2016 or even in 2023,” Tabrizi said, and said that “much has happened a lot during the past year” alone, with the weakening of Tehran representatives.
Mousavian agreed, saying that both parties will use indirect conversations as an opportunity to “evaluate and intentions on the other side.”
But time is of the essence. With the representatives of the Irans they weakened severely and their aerial defenses damaged in Tit clashes by Eye with Israel last year, Israel and the Republican Falcones in Washington believe that the moment is ready for military action against Iran’s nuclear sites.
