US-Iran nuclear talks end without a deal as threat of war grows | Iran nuclear programme

High-stakes talks between the United States and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear program ended without an agreement Thursday as the White House weighed a military operation that would mark its biggest intervention in the Middle East in decades.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi claimed “good progress” had been made in the talks, and Omani mediators predicted that talks would reconvene at a technical level in Vienna next week.

But there was no direct evidence to support suggestions that the two sides were converging on key issues such as Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stockpiles.

However, Iranian and Omani mediators have sought to shed a hopeful light on the talks, possibly in an attempt to avert the threat of attacks from the US fleet of aircraft and warships concentrated in the region.

Araghchi described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations.” He confirmed further contacts would take place in less than a week.

The indirect talks in Geneva were held in two sessions, and there were reports that the US team, led by Donald Trump’s special representative for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, was disappointed with the proposals put forward by Iran.

Observers said the brevity of the second negotiating session appeared concerning.

Iranian officials cited US media reports suggesting Tehran would have to end enrichment and allow its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to leave Iran.

At some point, To the disappointment of the Tehran team, Witkoff was forced to break off talks with Araghchi in order to cross the Swiss city to meet with Ukrainian negotiators.

Omani mediators rejected a proposed settlement, claiming that new and creative ideas were shared with unprecedented openness in what was billed as the third decisive round of indirect consultations.

The United States is demanding permanent guarantees from Iran on uranium enrichment and control mechanisms that will convince Washington that Tehran will never build a nuclear weapon. Iran has always denied having such a goal.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio also said Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile program was a problem, prompting Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei to complain about inconsistencies in US demands for talks.

The talks are being held against the backdrop of Trump’s unprecedented buildup of U.S. assets in the region, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, attack aircraft, aircraft refueling equipment and submarines equipped with Tomahawk missiles.

The center of the talks is whether the United States will try to ban Tehran from enriching almost all uranium. The right to enrich uranium domestically has long been seen as a symbol of Iran’s national sovereignty and was acknowledged by the United States in the 2015 nuclear deal.

Some of the discussion on enrichment may be delayed by Trump’s claim that Iran’s three main nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan were destroyed by US bombs last June, making it technically impossible to enrich large amounts of uranium for the foreseeable future.

Tehran has not allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, to examine the extent of damage to the facilities since the US attack.

“They’re not getting rich right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can,” Rubio said Wednesday.

The US request for permanent dismantling of the three facilities would conflict with Iran’s proposal to allow low-level enrichment under UN supervision, possibly after three to five years. The United States has not objected to such a plan before.

The fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile, which is close to nuclear weapons grade and enriched to 60% purity, is another impasse. The IAEA says Tehran has yet to locate a 400kg stockpile, enough to produce five to six bombs of similar power to the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945. The IAEA also estimated in May last year that Iran had 8,000 kg of uranium enriched to 20% or less.

The highly enriched stock could be blended in Iran or exported to Russia or the United States, as Tehran has suggested. Even if this leads to the lifting of many US and UN economic sanctions, it would be a huge concession for Iran to send its entire 8,000 kg stockpile to the US.

An Iranian official in Geneva insisted: “The principles of zero enrichment forever, the dismantling of nuclear facilities and the transfer of uranium stockpiles to the United States are completely rejected.”

Trump now has the military assets to either strike Iran as part of a sustained offensive designed to force regime change or to launch a more targeted strike designed to force Tehran into a more flexible negotiating position. Trump’s tough negotiating deadlines have always been flexible, but his military commanders won’t want to keep such a large and expensive concentration of power on a leash for much longer.

Trump is under domestic pressure to show that he is not leading the United States into a stalemate in negotiations; Democrats, on the other hand, are demanding a vote in Congress on the war they define as their own choice. An Associated Press poll this week found that 56 percent of Americans do not trust Trump to make the right decision about using military force outside the United States.

IAEA director general Rafael Grossi was at the center of the talks as his permission was needed to convince Washington that Iran’s guarantees of future low-level enrichment could be technically verified.

Tehran says it will not negotiate on non-nuclear issues. He refused to include the ballistic missile program or support for “resistance groups” in the Middle East as part of the discussions. Some describe their ballistic missiles, which have a range of 2000 km, as purely defensive.

Rubio said Wednesday that the ballistic missile program must be addressed at some point, acknowledging that the issue may not be on the immediate agenda but cannot be removed from later talks.

He said: “Iran refuses to discuss the range of its missiles with us or anyone else, and this is a big problem for us. Iran has missiles whose range increases every year, and this could be a threat to the United States because the range of the missiles could reach American territory.” He stated that short-range missiles could also hit US bases in the region.