Iran is willing to reinitiate atomic negotiations with Washington as long as it is approached with "dignity" and "honor", Iran's foreign minister has announced.
Abbas Araghchi said only diplomacy was effective, and revealed recent overtures had been made by go-betweens to resume discussions with the US government. He said Iran did not have unreported enrichment locations, and Iran had not yet reached a point to authorize the UN nuclear inspectorate to access bombed nuclear sites for safety concerns.
The foreign minister is walking a difficult path since Iran does not want be perceived to be operating from a position of weakness, and he insisted repeatedly that Iran had emerged more powerful defensively and psychologically from the joint assault on its atomic facilities in June.
He was speaking at a defense forum in Tehran where he reiterated that Iran had "an absolute privilege to process nuclear material domestically that it will never give up" – the key factor of the deadlock in the previous talks.
The previous five rounds of negotiations between the United States and Iran were concluded unexpectedly and bitter end on 12 June when Israel, with Washington's assistance, struck Iran's enrichment centers in a two-week conflict that ended with Donald Trump claiming the facilities had been destroyed. Subsequently, European countries employed their privilege to restore international penalties, but Iran asserts they have not had a substantial consequence.
Iranian officials claimed they felt they had attained a "perfect agreement" to the uranium processing matter in prior discussions, when it was agreed an domestic cooperative with US participation could refine atomic fuel. The two nations would have been able to assert triumph since domestic enrichment would have continued and the US could be confident that Iran's nuclear programme was solely for peaceful purposes.
It had not been agreed in the talks that American atomic experts could function within Iranian territory, but that was a logical implication of the cooperative offer. Representatives claimed on multiple occasions they had achieved a deal with the US representative Steve Witkoff only for the agreement to fall apart due to "opponents in the US".
Tehran representatives said the cooperative arrangement was now no longer available, but it seems very probable the proposal could be reintroduced in some form if negotiations reopen.
The American leader in recent days claimed he had been getting signals that Iran wanted to restart talks, but in private Iranian officials claim they are not yet obtaining consistent overtures from America either straightforwardly or from significant local go-betweens, such as the Qatari government, the Egyptian leadership, the Omani authorities and the Saudi kingdom. The Iran's state department has been charged of passivity in the aftermath of Trump's direct instinctive approach, but Tehran states negotiations is not part of a spectacle.
In his speech to the gathering, designed to portray the US as a dominant force that exploits the notion of global regulations, Araghchi declared the fortnight-long engagement demonstrated the conflict could not be settled by combat operations. He said the strikes began with a Washington's ultimatum for an total Iran submission and concluded with an unconditional call for a halt to hostilities.
Iran is convinced the opening assaults from Tel Aviv were mounted with complete American awareness and cooperation, making trust hard to rebuild.
Araghchi said: "It was not Iran that had deserted negotiations; it was the United States and the European states that had always sought to enforce their will during the negotiations. Negotiations can still be viable and stays the final resolution to resolve disputes, but its criteria, regulations and fundamentals must be respected."
"Provided that they talk to the citizens of Tehran with the approach of respect and respect, they will get a reply in the same tone."
In what is described by Iranian officials as the conflict of recovery and reconstruction, Araghchi said he was assured Iran's military capacities "have significantly improved than preceding 13 or 14 June of this year. Our entire military infrastructure have been rebuilt. We acquired many lessons from this engagement; we have identified our internal vulnerabilities and the weaknesses of the opponent."
He continued: "We managed to survive this engagement. Our enrichment knowledge, which they planned to destroy, stays intact. The installations and equipment, if destroyed, will be reconstructed; what is essential is the will of the Iranian people and then the national cohesion that they aimed at, but failed to break. The nation of Iran have developed more powerful, more integrated, and more supportive of the leadership and the country in the wake of this assault."
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