Iran is uncertain if it can trust the United States in diplomatic talks after Israel launched an aerial attack on the country only days before scheduled negotiations with American officials, Tehran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said Friday in an exclusive interview with NBC News.
Asked by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell if a deal could be reached with the United States within the two-week time frame recently given by President Donald Trump, Araghchi said it was up to the Trump administration “to show their determination for going for a negotiated solution.”
But he suggested Washington was perhaps not genuinely interested in diplomacy and had merely used talks as a “cover” for Israel’s air attack on Iran.
On her Thursday briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered what she said was a message from Trump: “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.” (Promising some action or decision in “two weeks” is a frequent thing for Trump — he has done so over a dozen times just in the last two months — and he does not always make good on it.)
Israel, a staunch U.S. ally, last week launched air strikes two days before a sixth round of negotiations between U.S. and Iranian officials, with intermediaries from Oman, had been scheduled to take place. U.S. officials said the administration was not involved in the Israeli military operation.
“So they had perhaps this plan in their mind, and they just needed negotiations perhaps to cover it up,” Araghchi said. “We don’t know how we can trust them anymore. What they did was in fact a betrayal to diplomacy.”
During the interview, which was conducted in Geneva after he held talks with European top diplomats, the Iranian foreign minister said his government was ready to negotiate but that Israel first had to halt its aerial attacks on Iran.
“We’re not prepared to negotiate with them anymore, as long as the aggression continues,” he said.
Araghchi said Iran would not give up uranium enrichment entirely, as Trump has demanded, saying “zero enrichment is impossible.”
“This is an achievement of of our own scientists. It is question of national pride,” he said, adding that it was a right of every country under international law.
The foreign minister also said that the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities could not destroy the technical “knowledge” that Iran has developed in its nuclear program.
Araghchi is an experienced diplomat who was one of the top negotiators of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers. That agreement imposed limits on Iran’s nuclear work in return for an easing of U.S. and international sanctions. In his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from the accord.
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