Iran is seeking a nuclear agreement with the US delivering economic benefits for both sides, an Iranian diplomat reportedly said on Sunday, days before another round of talks aimed at easing tensions between the two countries.
On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump would prefer to do a deal with Iran, but that achieving one would be “very hard to do”.
Trump said on Friday that the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was being sent from the Caribbean to the Middle East, and said regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen”.
Iran has threatened to strike American bases in the Middle East if it is attacked, but on Sunday took a conciliatory line.
“For the sake of an agreement’s durability, it is essential that the US also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns,” Foreign Ministry deputy director for economic diplomacy Hamid Ghanbari said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
“Common interests in the oil and gas fields, joint fields, mining investments, and even aircraft purchases are included in the negotiations,” Ghanbari said, arguing that the 2015 nuclear pact with world powers had not secured US economic interests.
In 2018, Trump withdrew the US from the pact that had eased sanctions on Iran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program, and re-applied tough economic sanctions.
The two countries renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute and avert a new military confrontation. Washington will soon have two aircraft carriers in the region and is preparing for the possibility of a sustained military campaign if the talks do not succeed, US officials have told Reuters.
Speaking in Bratislava, Rubio said: “We’re dealing with radical Shia clerics. We’re dealing with people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology. And it’s a complicated thing”.
“No one’s ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we’re going to try”.
On Friday, a source told Reuters that an American delegation would meet Iranian officials in Geneva on Tuesday, a meeting later confirmed to Reuters by a senior Iranian official.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner “are travelling right now, to have important meetings, and we’ll see how that turns out,” Rubio said, without providing further details.
While talks leading to the 2015 nuclear pact were multilateral, the current negotiations are confined to Iran and the United States, with Oman acting as mediator.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had left Tehran for Geneva to take part in the indirect nuclear talks with the US and meet the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, and others, his ministry said.
Iran ready to compromise
Meanwhile, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi signalled Tehran’s readiness to compromise on its nuclear program, telling the BBC on Sunday that the ball was “in America’s court to prove that they want to do a deal”.
Takht-Ravanchi referred to the Iranian nuclear chief’s statement on Monday that the country could agree to dilute its most highly enriched uranium in exchange for the lifting of sanctions as an example of Iran’s flexibility.
However, he reiterated that Tehran would not accept zero uranium enrichment, a key sticking point in past negotiations, with Washington viewing enrichment inside Iran as a potential pathway to nuclear weapons. Iran denies seeking such weapons.
In June, the US joined Israel in a series of air strikes that targeted Iranian nuclear sites.
The US is also stepping up economic pressure on Iran. At a White House meeting earlier this week, Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed that the US would work to reduce Iran’s oil exports to China, Axios reported on Saturday.
China accounts for more than 80 per cent of Iran’s oil exports, so any reduction in that trade would significantly lower Iran’s oil revenue.
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