Iran rejects ‘meaningless’ direct talks with US | Nuclear Weapons News

As war of words over nuclear weapons deal escalates, FM Araghchi says he wants talks on ‘equal footing’.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has described the prospect of direct negotiations on its nuclear programme with the United States as “meaningless” amid mounting tensions between the two countries.

Araghchi’s remarks came in a statement on Sunday, after Trump said last month in a letter sent to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he hoped there would be a negotiation between their countries aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Trump upped the ante last week, saying: “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing.”

Araghchi questioned Washington’s sincerity in calling for negotiations, saying on Sunday, “If you want negotiations, then what is the point of threatening?”

Tehran, which maintains that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon, has so far rejected Washington’s overtures, but has said it is open to indirect diplomacy – a stance repeated by Araghchi in Sunday’s statement.

Araghchi said Iran wanted to negotiate on an “equal footing” with the US, describing it as “a party that constantly threatens to resort to force in violation of the UN Charter and that expresses contradictory positions from its various officials”.

Upping the ante

Western countries, led by the US, have for decades accused Tehran of seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

In 2018, during his first term as president, Trump nixed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal between Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

Iran has since rolled back on its commitments under the agreement, amassing enough fissile material for multiple bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which carries out inspections of Iranian nuclear sites.

Responding to Trump’s threat of war, Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Saturday that the country was “ready” for war.

“We are not worried about war at all. We will not be the initiators of war, but we are ready for any war,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Salami as saying.

But Tehran’s position in the region appears to have weakened amid the ongoing war in Gaza and beyond, with Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon, and the toppling of another key partner, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, last year.

Iran says its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes. Israel, the top US ally in the region, is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.