No nuclear talks unless Israel stops attack, says Iran
No nuclear talks unless Israel stops attack, says Iran
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghch says Tehran would not resume negotiations with the United States until Israel stopped its attacks. Photo: Reuters
Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear programme while under attack by Israel, as Europe tried to coax Tehran back into negotiations and the United States considers whether to get involved in the conflict.
A week into its campaign, Israel said it had struck dozens of military targets, including missile production sites, a research body it said was involved in nuclear weapons development in Tehran and military facilities in western and central Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said there was no room for negotiations with the US "until Israeli aggression stops".
But he later arrived in Geneva for talks with European foreign ministers at which Europe hopes to establish a path back to diplomacy.
US President Donald Trump said on Friday he was unlikely to press Israel to scale back its airstrikes to allow negotiations to continue.
"I think it's very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we're ready, willing and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens," he said.
Speaking to reporters after his plane landed in Morristown, New Jersey, Trump said he doubted European negotiators would be able to secure a ceasefire.
"Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one," Trump said.
Trump also said that Iran had a "maximum" of two weeks to avoid possible US air strikes, indicating he could take a decision before the fortnight deadline he set a day earlier.
"I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum," Trump told reporters when asked if he could decide to strike Iran before that.
Trump had said in a statement on Thursday that he would "make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks" because there was a "substantial chance of negotiations" with Iran.
Those comments had been widely seen as opening a two-week window for negotiations to end the war between Israel and Iran.
But his latest remarks indicated Trump could still make his decision before that if he feels that there has been no progress towards dismantling Iran's nuclear program.
On Friday, Trump again disagreed with his own national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, by insisting that Iran does have the capability to build a nuclear weapon.
"She's wrong," Trump said.
Gabbard testified to Congress in March that the US intelligence community continued to judge that Tehran was not working on a nuclear warhead. (Agencies)
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