Washington and Tehran to hold more nuclear talks as protests reignite in Iran | Iran
Iran and the United States are expected to meet for a new round of talks in Geneva this week; It’s a sign that Donald Trump’s team believes Tehran is making serious overtures to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and show that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
As fears of renewed fighting emerged after Washington massively redeployed its military assets to the region, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said he still thought the chances of finding a diplomatic solution were good.
He told CBS that negotiators will likely meet on Thursday and try to strike a “quick deal.” But he hinted that US assets in the region were potential targets, saying: “If the US attacks us, then we have every right to defend ourselves.”
The Iranian government is also coming under pressure within the country again, suspecting that Trump could make a diplomatic move by approving a large-scale attack at any time.
Student demonstrations at universities in Tehran and the northeastern city of Mashhad continued for a second day on Sunday, with videos shot on the second day showing clashes between students and state-backed Basij militia turning violent.
Universities reopened on Saturday for the first time since protests that killed thousands in December and January, with most students returning to commemorate those killed and injured.
The actual number of deaths during the previous unrest is unclear. The government says the figure is just over 3,000, but human rights groups say it is at least 6,000.
The government refused to allow a UN-led investigative committee into the country and insisted its own internal investigation was sufficient. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Garibabadi, is scheduled to address the U.N. human rights council this week, a move that will likely prompt widespread walkouts by other delegates.
Trump initially vociferously supported the protesters, telling them “help is on the way” and appearing to threaten military intervention. But in recent weeks, the focus has shifted to Iran’s nuclear program as Washington has established a large military presence in the region.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said over the weekend that the US president questioned why Iran had not yet bowed to US pressure. “He wonders why they didn’t surrender… I don’t want to use the word ‘surrender,’ but why didn’t they surrender,” he told Fox News.
“Why, under this pressure, with so many naval and maritime powers, why didn’t they come to us and say ‘we claim we don’t want weapons, here’s what we’re prepared to do’?”
Iran’s position in the negotiations is that it should retain the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under a new verification regime controlled by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear oversight agency. Iran would need to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, allow the IAEA full access to its bombed nuclear facilities, and receive sanctions relief in return.
As a result, those who tell Trump to bomb Iran, such as U.S. Republican senator Lindsey Graham, are losing ground. But the real political challenge for Trump lies in portraying any new deal as superior to the landmark deal Democrats negotiated in 2015 and from which he withdrew in 2018 during his first term as president.
Araghchi told CBS that elements of a new deal, although not very detailed, could be an improvement over the previous agreement, as Iran would commit to its nuclear program being “peaceful forever.” The 2015 agreement was time limited.
In practice, Iran may have the right in principle to enrich uranium for nuclear energy production, but Iran’s practical capacity to do so would be strictly limited, experts say.
U.S. officials believe Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the country’s president Masoud Pezeshkian are increasingly excluded from the talks. They believe Araghchi and the head of the supreme national security council, Ali Larijani, are leading the strategy.
The extent of Pezeshkian’s political apathy was revealed by the mass arrests of his closest supporters in the Reformists Front coalition, an umbrella group that secured his election in 2024; Many of the members of these groups are in prison or accused of supporting foreign interests.
Some have been released on bail, but they remain angry as they face accusations of siding with the enemy for criticizing the military and security forces for their crackdown on protests. Exact information on how many people are in jail or facing charges is lacking.
Two of the front’s leading figures, political committee chairman Ibrahim Asgharzadeh and spokesman Javad Imam, were released on bail after spending three and four days in prison respectively.
The head of the organization, Azar Mansouri, who is also the general secretary of the Islamic Iranian People’s Union party, was also released on bail.
