Iran said yesterday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the US considers whether to get involved in the conflict.
European foreign ministers urged Iran yesterday to engage with the US over its nuclear programme after high-level talks in Geneva aimed at opening negotiations for a new nuclear deal ended with a few signs of progress.
The talks between the foreign ministers of Germany, Britain, France and the EU with their Iranian counterpart sought to test Tehran’s readiness to negotiate despite there being scant prospect of Israel ceasing its attacks soon, diplomats said.
“The Iranian Foreign Minister has expressed his willingness to continue discussions on the nuclear programme and more broadly on all issues, and we expect Iran to commit to the discussion, including with the US, to reach a negotiated settlement,” said French Foreign Minister Jean Noel Barrot.
Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy said the European countries were eager to continue talks with Iran.
“This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict,” he said.
Two diplomats said Araqchi would be told the US is still open to direct talks. But expectations for a breakthrough are low, diplomats say.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the US ‘until Israeli aggression stops’. But he later arrived in Geneva for talks with European foreign ministers.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said yesterday he might support a ceasefire ‘depending on the circumstances’.
Asked by reporters if he would support a ceasefire while negotiations are ongoing, Trump said: “I might, depending on the circumstances”.
Europe would not be able to help much in the war between Iran and Israel, Trump added.
“Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one,” Trump said.
Israel’s envoy to the UN, Danny Danon, told the UN Security Council his country would not stop its attacks ‘until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled’. Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani called for Security Council action and said Tehran was alarmed by reports that the US may join the war.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog warned against attacks on nuclear facilities and called for maximum restraint.
“Armed attack on nuclear facilities... could result in radioactive releases with great consequences within and beyond the boundaries of the state which has been attacked,” Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Security Council.
He spoke a day after an Israeli military official said it had been ‘a mistake’ for a military spokesperson to have said Israel had struck Bushehr, Iran’s only nuclear power plant. He said he could neither confirm nor deny that Russian-built Bushehr, located on the Gulf coast, had been hit.
Iran said yesterday its air defences had been activated in Bushehr, without elaborating.
Israel says it is determined to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities but that it wants to avoid any nuclear disaster.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, also speaking at the world body’s Security Council, said the Iran-Israel conflict could ‘ignite a fire no one can control’ and called on all parties to ‘give peace a chance’.
Russia and China demanded immediate de-escalation.
The White House said on Thursday President Donald Trump would decide on US involvement in the conflict in the next two weeks. Trump presided over a national security meeting about Iran yesterday with top aides at the White House, a US official said.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is in regular contact with the Iranians, with Qatar acting as an intermediary, the official added.
A senior Iranian official told Reuters Iran was ready to discuss limitations on uranium enrichment but that any proposal for zero enrichment – not being able to enrich uranium at all – would be rejected, “especially now under Israel’s strikes”.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Saar, speaking in Haifa, said he was very sceptical about Iran’s intentions. “We know from the record of Iran they are not negotiating honestly,” he said.
A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran.
The Israeli military later said they had struck surface-to-air missile batteries in southwestern Iran as part of efforts to achieve air superiority over the country. Explosions were heard in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province and at least four people there were killed, IRNA news agency reported.
At least five people were injured when Israel hit a five-storey building in Tehran housing a bakery and a hairdresser’s, Fars news agency reported. Iranian air defences were activated yesterday evening.
Iran fired missiles at Beersheba in southern Israel and Haifa in the north, causing damage to an Ottoman-era mosque, according to Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. A foreign ministry video also showed extensive damage to a nearby high-rise building that houses a branch of Israel’s Interior Ministry.
Haifa is home to Israel’s busiest seaport and a naval base.
Fars quoted an Iranian military spokesman as saying Tehran’s missile and drone attacks yesterday had used long-range and ultra-heavy missiles against military sites, defence industries and command and control centres.
Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based human rights organisation that tracks Iran. The dead include the military’s top echelon and nuclear scientists.
&uuid=(email))