US, Iran eye tentative nuclear talks as regional diplomacy intensifies

The United States and Iran may be inching towards a renewed nuclear accord, following intensive behind-the-scenes diplomacy by Gulf monarchies and Turkey aimed at averting a new regional war. With US President Donald Trump indicating a clear preference for negotiation over confrontation, Washington appears to have quietly abandoned earlier talk of regime change in Tehran and efforts to assist Iranians caught in last month’s bloody protests. “If the Iranian people want to overthrow the regime, that’s up to them,” US Vice-President J.D. Vance told reporters in neighbouring Azerbaijan on Wednesday. “What we are focused on now is the fact that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.” Trump also appeared to brush aside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to persuade him to adopt “our views regarding the principles for the negotiations”. Netanyahu staunchly opposes any deal that fails to further degrade Iran’s military capabilities, especially after their 12-day war in June. That conflict, launched days before US and Iranian officials were scheduled to meet, ended with American air strikes on three of Iran’s main nuclear enrichment sites. After meeting Netanyahu at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said he wanted to test whether a deal with Iran “can be consummated”. “If it can, I let the prime minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” Trump said on social media. Before any negotiations begin, however, Washington and Tehran must still agree on the agenda for an expected meeting next week between US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Hardline positions Following the restoration of formal diplomatic contact, brokered by Oman last Friday, both sides praised the “positive atmosphere” in Muscat while simultaneously hardening their public positions. Trump has demanded that Iran halt uranium enrichment, transfer its stockpile to a third country, dismantle any ballistic missiles capable of striking Israel and stop supporting its “axis of resistance” allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. Hours before seeing Netanyahu, Trump told Fox News that any agreement with Tehran must mean “no nuclear weapons, no missiles, no this, no that, all the different things that you want”, comments widely viewed as reassurance aimed at Israel. Trump’s expressed preference for a negotiated settlement appears to be genuine, according to two veteran Iran experts. Barbara Slavin, a distinguished Middle East fellow at the Stimson Centre think tank in Washington, said the administration likely had no desire to topple Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “While Trump would love to be the US president on whose watch the Islamic Republic fell, a weak Iran that poses less and less of a threat to the US and its allies in the region would probably be sufficient,” she said. But the unpredictable US leader could easily change tack, warned political scientist Ali Alfoneh, author of Political Succession in the Islamic Republic of Iran. US foreign policy increasingly resembled “a personalist system”, he argued, shaped Trump’s “instincts and the views of the last individual to advise him”. Before hosting Netanyahu, for instance, Trump spoke with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who had just met Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. Tehran, for its part, has signalled conditional openness to limits on nuclear enrichment in exchange for some easing of US sanctions. Iranian nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told local media on Monday that Iran’s near-weapons-grade uranium stockpile could be “diluted” in return for economic incentives. After his talks with Qatar’s emir, Larijani told Al Jazeera there was “common ground with Washington regarding our non-acquisition of nuclear weapons”, but ruled out negotiations “on any other issue besides the nuclear programme”. Ready to retaliate Senior Iranian officials have also warned that any US attacks by the armada of aircraft and warships within range would trigger region-wide retaliation. Washington should take those threats seriously, experts say. If the US were perceived as seeking regime change, “the regime may conclude it has little left to lose,” warned Alfoneh, who is also a senior resident scholar of the Washington-based Arab Gulf States Institute. Iran’s decentralised power structure could enable a strategy to drag the US into a drawn-out conflict, he said, including attacks on energy infrastructure to disrupt global markets and drive up fuel prices. Slavin added that Tehran’s threat “is real this time in part because of the recent protests”. “The regime feels besieged both inside and out and will not want to show weakness, which it fears will only encourage more attacks,” she said. Analysts said that Trump’s bid for Arab mediation in negotiations should not be confused with any softening of US support for Israel’s regional dominance. The US “continues to support Israel as Israel continues to kill 20 people a day in Gaza in a futile effort to defeat Hamas”, Slavin said, adding that it also “stood by while Israel kills Palestinians in the West Bank and facilitates attacks by militant settlers”. While the Trump administration valued relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, she said it did not view them as “obstacles to condoning continued Israeli territorial expansion”. Nor do the Gulf states harbour any sympathy for Tehran. Alfoneh said their diplomatic push reflected the shifting balance of power in the region – the “ascendancy of Israel and Iran’s decline” – reshaping “threat perceptions”. “The Arabs simply don’t want to be caught in the crossfire,” Slavin added.

US, Iran eye tentative nuclear talks as regional diplomacy intensifies

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Both sides appear amenable to a deal limiting some of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities after last week’s diplomatic re-establishment

Both sides appear amenable to a deal limiting some of Iran’s nuclear enrichment activities after last week’s diplomatic re-establishment