The US should immediately stop threatening to use force against Iran, Foreign Minister Abbas Arakchi said on Tuesday. He was responding to statements made by Donald Trump's administration ahead of the current nuclear negotiations.
The day before, the head of Iranian diplomacy met with Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Geneva to discuss the resumption of inspections at Tehran's nuclear facilities.
The Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan facilities were targeted by US attacks last June as part of Operation Midnight Hammer, which culminated in a 12-day war with Israel. After the attacks, Tehran suspended its cooperation with one of the oldest UN agencies.
Negotiators from the Islamic Republic and the United States reached a framework agreement on the main "guiding principles" for further negotiations at the Omani embassy in Geneva, Switzerland, Arakchi added, noting that further work is still needed.
This progress does not mean that an agreement will be reached soon, but the journey has begun, he told Iranian media after the talks.
Trump and several of his hawkish supporters have repeatedly emphasized regime change as a desirable outcome in recent days and weeks.
In particular, Senator Lindsey Graham, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, compared Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and hinted at the possibility of an assassination.
Against the backdrop of the talks in Switzerland, Ayatollah Khamenei noted that any attempt at regime change is doomed to failure.
During the negotiations, Iran temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, citing military exercises by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the reason.
Although this move lasted only a few hours, it sparked global economic concerns. The strait is one of the main arteries of oil trade, with one-fifth of the world's volume passing through it.
In addition to the aforementioned "security reasons," the Guard's exercises were also a symbolic response to the increase in US military presence in the Indian Ocean, where Trump intended to send a second aircraft carrier and an amphibious group.
Reuters noted that Tehran has threatened in the past to close the strait in the event of an attack on its territory.
An anonymous source in Geneva told the agency that Trump's most important negotiators—Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner (without an official position)—had negotiated with Arakchi.
A few days before the talks, anonymous sources from the Pentagon admitted to Reuters that the Trump administration was preparing for "weeks-long" operations against Iran.
Trump has repeatedly called for a new agreement to limit the nuclear program. He withdrew from the original format—negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015—in 2018, along with a comprehensive renewal of sanctions.
Trump's successor, Joe Biden, has eased some sanctions and also unfrozen approximately $6 billion in humanitarian funds for Tehran. Biden's critics linked this move in September 2023 to the subsequent attack by Hamas on southern Israel – and thus to the start of the war in the Gaza Strip.
Biden's successor, Donald Trump, reinstated all suspended sanctions as part of a "maximum pressure" policy aimed at forcing the Shiite regime to abandon its nuclear enrichment program. In addition to the US, the E3 countries – Britain, France, and Germany – also supported the reinstatement of sanctions (snapback).
If an agreement on the permitted level of uranium enrichment is reached, sanctions and trade embargoes would likely be suspended again, but the anti-government protests that have been ongoing since December last year would lose momentum.
