Latest news with #Admin-iran
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Delegates from Iran, US holding talks in Oman amid ongoing tensions: What to know
Delegates from the United States and Iran are holding talks in Oman on Saturday in a delicate effort to restart negotiations over Tehran's controversial nuclear program. The talks, between a mediator to Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, come nearly seven years after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018. Since then, indirect talks between the two adversaries have made zero progress. Trump has imposed new sanctions on the Islamic Republic as part of his "maximum pressure" campaign and has suggested military action remained a possibility. Despite this, the president has said he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran's 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which he sent early last month. Khamenei, meanwhile, has warned that Iran would respond to any U.S.-led attack with an attack of its own. Trump Demands Do-or-die Nuclear Talks With Iran. Who Has The Leverage? "They threaten to commit acts of mischief, but we are not entirely certain that such actions will take place," the supreme leader said. "We do not consider it highly likely that trouble will come from the outside. However, if it does, they will undoubtedly face a strong retaliatory strike." Read On The Fox News App Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei called such threats against Iran "a shocking affront to the very essence of International Peace and Security." "Violence breeds violence, peace begets peace. The US can choose the course...; and concede to CONSEQUENCES," he wrote on X. Ahead Of Trump Admin-iran Talks, New Report Says Iran Nuclear Threat Rises To 'Extreme Danger' Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has rejected direct negotiations with the United States over Tehran's nuclear program. "We don't avoid talks; it's the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far," Pezeshkian said in televised remarks during a Cabinet meeting. "They must prove that they can build trust." Once allies, both countries have been hostile to one another for nearly half a century, following the 1979 Islamic Revolution that saw the creation of a theocratic government led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, whose rule was cemented in a CIA-led coup in 1953, had fled Iran before the revolution, ill with cancer, as demonstrations swelled against his rule. Late in 1979, university students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah's extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that severed diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. Trump's Got Iran Cornered By Following Reagan's Doctrine In the decades since, Iran-U.S. relations have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers before Trump withdrew from the deal, sparking more tensions in the Mideast that persist today. Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 661 pounds. The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's program put its stockpile at 18,286 pounds as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity. U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has "undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so." Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do article source: Delegates from Iran, US holding talks in Oman amid ongoing tensions: What to know
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump demands do-or-die nuclear talks with Iran. Who has the leverage?
President Donald Trump remains adamant that his administration will engage in "direct" nuclear talks with Iran on Saturday in Oman, while Tehran appears to remain equally steadfast in its insistence the negotiations will be "indirect." Middle East envoy Stever Witkoff is scheduled to travel to Oman, where he could potentially be meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, though the Iranian official has so far maintained the talks will be held through a third party. While it remains unclear who will get their way regarding the format of the discussions, Iran expert and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Behnam Ben Taleblu, said this public controversy between Washington and Tehran is all a game of leverage. "Both sides have an incentive to either overrepresent or underrepresent what is happening," he told Fox News Digital. "These are often the negotiations before the negotiations." Iran Mulls Preemptive Strike On Us Base After Trump Bomb Threats "For the White House, the desire to be seen as having direct talks with the Islamic Republic is high," he said, pointing to the lack of direct engagement between Washington and Tehran dating back to his first term and the regime's deep disdain for the president, as witnessed in an apparent assassination attempt. Read On The Fox News App While the Iranian government has long held contempt for the U.S., a sentiment that has persisted for decades, Trump is "very different," Ben Taleblu said. The security expert highlighted the 2020 assassination of top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the crippling effect of the U.S.-sanctioned maximum-pressure campaign and Trump's open support for the Iranian people as the major issues that have rankled the Iranian regime. "Trump is a very bitter pill to swallow, and I think the supreme leader of Iran once said that the shoe of Qasem Soleimani has more honor than the head of Trump," Ben Taleblu said. "Being seen as directly negotiating with someone [like that] would be making the Islamic Republic look like a supplicant. "The U.S. wants to be seen as having driven Iran to the negotiating table, and the Islamic Republic does not want to be seen as being driven to the negotiating table," he added. Ahead Of Trump Admin-iran Talks, New Report Says Iran Nuclear Threat Rises To 'Extreme Danger' Tehran's chief advantage is the fact that, despite severe U.S. sanctions and geopolitical attempts to halt its development of a nuclear weapon, it has made serious gains in its enrichment of uranium to near-weapons-grade quality, as well as with its missile program, a critical component in being able to actually fire a nuclear warhead. It also has drastically closer ties with chief U.S. adversarial superpowers like Russia and China, whose position and involvement in countering Western attempts to disarm a nuclear Iran remains an unknown at this point. While Iran holds significant leverage when it comes to negotiating with the Trump administration on its nuclear program, Washington has a plethora of levers it can use to either incentivize or coerce Tehran into adhering to international calls for the end of its nuclear program. "The U.S. actually has a heck of a lot of leverage here," Ben Taleblu said, pointing to not only more economic sanctions, including "snapback" mechanisms under the United Nations Security Council, but also military options. Trump last month threatened to "bomb" Iran if it did not engage in nuclear talks with the U.S. But some have questioned how long the administration will allow negotiations to persist as JCPOA-era snapback sanctions expire in October 2025. The White House would not confirm for Fox News Digital any time restrictions it has issued to Iran, but Trump on Wednesday told reporters, "We have a little time, but we don't have much time." Time Is Running Out To Stop Iran From Making Nuclear Bomb: 'Dangerous Territory' "The regime has its back against the wall," Ben Taleblu said. "A military option, given what has been happening in the Middle East since Oct. 7, 2023, is an increasingly credible option against the Islamic Republic of Iran." "And the regime is engaging, now, to delay and prevent a military option from ever materializing," he added. "They are hoping to use talks with the Americans as a human shield against the Israelis." "So long as you're talking to America, the Israelis aren't shooting at you," Ben Taleblu continued. Trump this week said that it would be Israel who would take the lead on a military strike on Iran, not the U.S., should nuclear talks fail, which again could be a negotiating tactic as Israel has already demonstrated it will not hesitate to militarily engage with Iran. "Pursuing wholesale disarmament of the Islamic Republic of Iran is incredibly risky, and it doesn't have a great track record of succeeding," Ben Taleblu said. The Iranian expert said the only way to actually take on the Islamic Republic would be through a "broader" and "more holistic" strategy that focuses not only on nuclear nonproliferation but removing the "Axis of Resistance," scaling up sanctions and having a "ground game" to counter the regime through cyber, political and telecommunication strategies "for when Iranians go out into the street and protest again." "What the Islamic Republic would always want is to have you focus on the fire and not on the arsonist, and the arsonist is quite literally a regime that has tried to kill this president," Ben Taleblu article source: Trump demands do-or-die nuclear talks with Iran. Who has the leverage?
