Iran’s deputy foreign minister told the BBC on Monday that Tehran’s leaders would be willing to resume diplomatic talks over the country’s nuclear program if the U.S. agrees it will not launch any additional military strikes.
“We are hearing from Washington, telling us that they want to talk,” Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi said in an interview with the outlet. “Right now, we are seeking an answer to this question: Are we going to see a repetition of an act of aggression while we are engaging in dialog?”
“They have not made their position clear yet,” he added.
The U.S. launched strikes on three key nuclear facilities in Iran on June 21 as Tehran and Israel traded airstrikes, which paused ongoing U.S.-Iranian negotiations on a new nuclear agreement meant to prohibit Iran from obtaining a massive weapon.
President Trump and his allies have touted the U.S. military operation as a success that will set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities by years and repeatedly pushed back on a leaked initial assessment that questioned the scope of the damage.
Trump on Monday denied that he had been in talks with representatives from Iran.
“I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike [former President] Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!),” he wrote in a post on Truth Social, adding “nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities.”
Trump upended the Obama-era Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), during his first term. The U.S. and Iran had been in ongoing negotiations on a new agreement before Israel launched a surprise attack on Tehran’s military and nuclear sites June 13.
Takht-Ravanchi told the BBC that Iran would “insist” on being able to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, which leaders there claimed they were doing before the attacks on their program.
“The capacity can be discussed but to say that you should not have enrichment, you should have zero enrichment and if you do not agree with bomb you? That is the law of the jungle,” Takht-Ravanchi said.
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