Iran said on Friday it was giving high-level nuclear talks with the United States on Saturday “a genuine chance”, after President Donald Trump threatened bombing if discussions failed.
Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that Washington and Tehran would begin talks in Oman, a Gulf state that has mediated between the West and the Islamic Republic before.
In a sign of the difficult road ahead for negotiators, the White House reiterated Trump’s threat on Friday, saying he wants Iran to know there will be “all hell to pay” if it does not agree to abandon its nuclear programme.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff, who will lead the U.S. delegation, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying the administration’s “red line” is to stop Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon and that dismantling its nuclear program is the opening demand. But he suggested Washington would be open to “other ways to find compromise.”
The January return to the White House of Trump, who in his first term withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 big-power accord with Tehran, has again brought a tougher approach to a Middle Eastern power whose nuclear programme Washington’s ally Israel regards as an existential threat.
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/world/iran-gives-us-talks-a-genuine-chance-amid-trumps-bombing-threats-13879231.html.
