US warns of Iranian threat ahead of nuclear talks
Senior Trump administration officials say Iran poses a major threat to the United States ahead of talks on Tehran’s nuclear program.
US and Iranian negotiators will meet in Geneva on Thursday local time for a third round of nuclear talks in 2026, as the US mounts one of its largest military deployments in the Middle East ahead of possible attacks on the Islamic Republic.
President Donald Trump ordered an attack on Iran in 2025, claiming that they “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear facilities in July.
“After their nuclear program ended, they were told not to try to restart it, and here they are,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters.
“You can see they’re always trying to rebuild elements of it. They’re not getting rich right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they can eventually.”
Rubio said Iran also has a large number of ballistic missiles that threaten US interests in the region and is trying to develop weapons that can reach the US continent.
“Beyond the nuclear program, they have these conventional weapons that are designed just to attack America and attack Americans if they want to… They already have weapons that can reach most of Europe right now,” Rubio said.
Previously, Vice President JD Vance said that the US’s stance was that Iran could not have nuclear weapons, and Trump preferred to resolve the issue through diplomacy.
But speaking to Fox News, Vance said he would mobilize the US military against Iran if necessary and that “most Americans understand that the craziest and worst regime in the world will not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, satellite photos show that all of the American ships docked in Bahrain, home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, are at sea.
Before Iran attacked Qatar in June, the 5th Fleet similarly dispersed its ships at sea to protect against a possible attack.
Trump touched on Iran and nuclear negotiations in his State of the Union address late Tuesday, US time.
“They were warned not to make any future attempts to rebuild their weapons programs, especially nuclear weapons, but they are continuing. They are starting all over again,” Trump said.
Responding to Trump, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei tried to compare him to Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
He accused Trump and his administration of waging a “disinformation and misinformation campaign” against Iran.
“Whatever their claims about Iran’s nuclear program, Iran’s ballistic missiles and the death toll during the January riots are just a repetition of ‘big lies’,” Baghaei wrote on social media platform X.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf also said that the United States could either try diplomacy or face Iran’s wrath.
“If you choose the table of diplomacy (a diplomacy that respects the honor of the Iranian nation and common interests), we will be at that table,” Qalibaf said, according to the semi-official Student News Network, which is believed to be close to the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
“But if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, faulty analysis and misinformation and launch an attack in the middle of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the harsh blow of the Iranian nation and the country’s defense forces.”
The plane carrying Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his team arrived in Geneva late Wednesday, where they will meet American officials led by US special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.
via Reuters
