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US and Iran trade nuclear talk overtures

10 March 2025

Iran will only consider nuclear talks with the US if the objective of the negotiations is to address concerns on the militarisation of Iran's nuclear programme, the Islamic Republic's UN Mission said in a social media post on 9 March.

"If the objective of negotiations is to address concerns vis-a-vis any potential militarisation of Iran’s nuclear programme, such discussions may be subject to consideration," Iran's UN MIssion said on social media platform X. "However, should the aim be the dismantlement of Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme to claim that what [former US President Barack] Obama failed to achieve has now been accomplished, such negotiations will never take place."

The statement was issued two days after US President Donald Trump said he had offered Iran a chance to negotiate or risk its nuclear programme being targeted militarily.

"There are two ways Iran can be handled – militarily, or you make a deal," Trump told Fox Business in an interview on 7 March. "I would prefer to make a deal, because I am not looking to hurt Iran."

"I've written them a letter, saying I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily it's going to be a terrible thing for them," Trump said.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared to have responded indirectly to those comments on 8 March, saying Iran would not negotiate with "bullying governments" insisting on talks.

2015 nuclear deal

Under a landmark deal called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was struck in 2015, Iran agreed to mothball its Fordo nuclear plant and limit its enrichment of uranium to 3.67%, as part of a package of restrictions on its nuclear activities aimed at preventing it from covertly developing a nuclear weapon.

In return for the restrictions, major powers including China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, the US and the EU agreed to relax the sanctions they had imposed on Iran’s nuclear programme.

But the deal crumbled in 2018 during Trump's first term, as he pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed crippling economic sanctions.

Iran has since reopened its Fordo plant and, in November 2022, said it had begun producing uranium enriched to 60% there, just below the level of purity needed for a nuclear weapon.

Talks to revive the 2015 pact began in April 2021 but have stalled in recent years amid tensions between Iran and other parties to the deal.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo

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