European Leaders Seek Diplomacy in Talks With Iran as Trump Weighs Strike

Officials from Europe met with their Iranian counterparts on Friday in hopes of reaching a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, even as attacks continued.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Daivd Lammy said ahead of the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, that a 'window now exists' to end the crisis.
After the talks concluded with no apparent breakthrough, Lammy said European ministers were 'keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran,' and urged the country to continue talks with the U.S.
'This is a perilous moment,' he said, 'and it is hugely important that we don't see regional escalation of this conflict.'
Added uncertainty was cast on the possibility of reaching an agreement on Friday when Iran launched a fresh barrage of missile strikes on targets in the south of Israel, and on the northern city of Haifa.
The attacks came after the Israel Defense Forces said that it struck a number of military targets in Iran overnight, including facilities used for missile manufacturing. The Israeli military says it has now destroyed around half of Iran's missile launchers, as well as killing a number of military personnel since last week.
President Donald Trump has also been weighing whether to launch a military strike on Iran. He is expected to make a decision within two weeks, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, reading a statement from Trump in which the President said 'there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.'
The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in protracted talks over a possible nuclear deal for the past two months, but a scheduled round of negotiations was cancelled after Israeli strikes began. 'There is no room for negotiations with the U.S. until Israeli aggression stops,' Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly said while speaking on Iranian state TV on Friday.
Before negotiations in Geneva began, French President Emmanuel Macron said while talking to reporters in Paris that 'Iran must show that it is willing to join the platform for negotiations we are putting on the table.'
Macron outlined particular focus points of the discussions, which included working towards zero uranium enrichment in Iran, the oversight of Iranian ballistic missiles, Iranian funding of proxy groups in the Middle East, and the release of foreign nationals in Iranian prisons.
As negotiations took place, a spokesperson for Iran's Presidency said: 'Iran believes in civilian dialogue … Directly or indirectly is not important.'
The spokesperson, Majid Farahani, added: 'President Trump can easily stop the war by only one telephone [call] to [the] Israelis.'
Macron and Trump exchanged barbs earlier in the week after Trump departed the G7 summit early as the conflict between Iran and Israel mounted.
Trump called the French President 'publicity seeking' after Macron told press that the U.S. had assured 'they will find a cease-fire, and since they can pressure Israel, things may change.'
'President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a 'cease fire' between Israel and Iran,' Trump said in a post on Truth Social. 'Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that.'
Trump's latest stance on direct U.S. involvement comes after some uncertainty earlier this week, during which the President said: 'I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I'm going to do' when asked if he was moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned on Wednesday that 'the harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.'
European officials began talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at around 4p.m local time (11a.m ET) on Friday. Before talks began, Araghchi addressed the United Nations Security Council, calling last week's initial attack from Israel as "an outrageous act of aggression" and a "stark violation of the U.N. charter" in his remarks.
Israel's Ambassador to the U.N. Daniel Meron criticized the body for allowing Araghchi the floor at the meeting, saying in a letter addressed to council president Jurg Lauber, "Affording the Iranian foreign minister the floor before this body continues to undermine the council's credibility and constitutes a blatant betrayal of the many victims of this regime worldwide.'
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar was dismissive of the talks in Geneva in an interview on Friday. 'All diplomatic efforts until now were not successful,' he said. 'They usually use these talks in order to deceive, in order to waste time.'

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Fox News

9 minutes ago

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Elite university professor sparks social media backlash after revealing what Iran should do next: 'This demon'

A professor at Georgetown University is in hot water on social media over a post where he explained his "hope" for Iran doing "some symbolic strike" on a U.S. military base, igniting backlash on social media and calls for him to be fired. "I'm not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily," Dr. Jonathan Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilization in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, posted on X on Sunday after the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear sites on Saturday night. "I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops. I'm surprised this is what these FDD/Hasbara people have been auto-erotically asphyxiating themselves for all these years. Ironically, the main takeaways (in my non-expert opinion, and I'm happy to be corrected) from all this have nothing to do with a US attack: 1) Iran can take a licking; 2) if Israel attacks Iranian cities, it gets f---ed up pretty bad. I mean I've been shocked at the damage Iranian missiles caused; 3) despite his best efforts, Reza Pahlavi HVAC repair services still only third best in Nova." Many conservatives on social media immediately reacted to the post and interpreted it as a college professor wishing for Iran to attack U.S. soldiers or at least put them in harm's way. "Are you kidding me?" conservative commentator Sage Steele posted on X in response to the post being picked up by the conservative influencer account LibsofTikTok. A 'Professor of Islamic Civilization' at @Georgetown 'hopes Iran does some symbolic strike' on Americans," GOP Rep. Randy Fine posted on X. "Some civilization. The President of Georgetown will be before @EdWorkforceCmte soon. This demon had better be gone by then. We have a Muslim problem in America." "A Georgetown professor wants Iran to attack a US base," Foundation for the Defense of Democracies CEO Mark Dubowitz posted on X, before providing information on the background of Brown's wife. "Brown is married to Laila Al-Arian, a journalist for the Muslim Brotherhood propaganda outlet Al Jazeera. Her father, Sami Al-Arian, was deported from the U.S. to Turkey. He was accused of providing material support to the US-designated and Iran-backed terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Brown's father-in-law, Sami Al-Arian, was deported from the United States to Turkey in 2015 after a long legal battle where he pleaded "guilty" to supporting Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization, according to Politico. A 2006 Department of Justice press release said he acknowledged "in the plea agreement that he knew the PIJ used acts of violence as a means to achieve its objectives. Nevertheless, Al-Arian continued to assist the terrorist organization, for instance, by filing official paperwork to obtain immigration benefits for PIJ associate Bashir Nafi, and concealing the terrorist associations of various individuals associated with the PIJ." "Al-Arian admits that he performed services for the PIJ in 1995 and thereafter, when he was a professor at the University of South Florida and after he knew that the PIJ had been designated by President Clinton as a terrorist organization," the press release said. "I went to graduate school with Jonathan Brown," Jewish People Policy Institute fellow Dr. Sara Yael Hirschhorn posted on X. "I'm appalled to see him calling for Iran to attack U.S. troops and his awe at attacks on Israeli civilians. @Georgetown- enough!" "These are the people teaching your kids at colleges and Universities," conservative influencer Laura Loomer posted on X. "@Georgetown should fire him." In a follow-up post on Monday morning, Brown told his followers he deleted the post and explained why. "I deleted my previous tweet because a lot of people were interpreting it as a call for violence," Brown posted on X. "That's not what I intended. I have two immediate family members in the US military who've served abroad and wouldn't want any harm to befall American soldiers… or anyone!" When reached for comment on his controversial post, Brown told Fox News Digital he "meant something like right after Solimani was killed, with telegraphed warning and no American casualties and no one felt any further need for attacks." "I was calling for de-esclation as I am very opposed to American involvement in foreign wars," he continued. A Georgetown University spokesperson told Fox News Digital the university was "appalled" by the social media post. "We are appalled that a faculty member would call for a 'symbolic strike' on a military base in a social media post. The original statement is from an individual faculty member and not the University, and the faculty member has since deleted the post and stated that he would not want any harm to befall American servicemembers," the spokesperson said. "We are reviewing this matter to see if further action is warranted. We take our community's concerns seriously and condemn language which is deeply inconsistent with Georgetown University's values." President Donald Trump announced the U.S. had struck a trio of nuclear facilities in Iran via a Saturday evening Truth Social post, which was not preceded by any media leaks of prior indication such strikes were imminent. The president ordered U.S. B-2 stealth bombers to carry out strikes against Iran's Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities. "Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated," Trump said. "And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. 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Washington Post

12 minutes ago

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‘America is not necessarily a guarantee. It never is.'

Jose Antonio Vargas made headlines in 2011 when he revealed in an essay for the New York Times Magazine that he was an undocumented immigrant. Vargas had come to the United States from the Philippines at age 12 to live with his grandparents, only learning years later that he had done so illegally. In the essay, Vargas described coming of age and launching his career in journalism — including at The Washington Post, where he was part of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the Virginia Tech shootings — all while living in fear that he would be found out. 'I'm done running,' he wrote. 'I'm exhausted. I don't want that life anymore.' Vargas, who founded the nonprofit advocacy organization Define American, expanded on the essay in his memoir, 'Dear America: Notes From an Undocumented Citizen.' First published in 2018, the book was among the earliest entries in what's now a growing canon that explores the experiences of undocumented immigrants, including work by Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Javier Zamora, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, Cristina Jiménez and Jill Damatac. This month, amid high-profile public clashes over President Donald Trump's immigration policies and enforcement, Vargas released a new edition of 'Dear America.' It includes a new epilogue, in which he recounts leaving the United States for the first time since his arrival so he can become documented. Vargas and I spoke over the phone while he was in New York getting ready to promote the book. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. It's an interesting time to revisit this material. How does it feel to prepare to go out and talk about the book again? You know, I wrote this book during the first Trump administration. I actually was living in downtown Los Angeles. 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It's written the way that it's written because I wanted to capture the rhythm of a life on the run.' So this goes to your question: In some ways, given what's happening in Los Angeles and in the country — the interior life of being an undocumented person, and the fact that you have to lie, you have to pass, you have to hide, that's as relevant and urgent as ever. What was the impetus for releasing a new edition? It happened right around the election, after Trump was elected president. Wow — so it was fast? Oh yeah. I was texting with Carrie Thornton, the head of Dey Street Books. And at the time, I did not tell Carrie — because I didn't tell really a lot of people; I didn't tell my own family — that I was going through this process [to apply for a visa], that I was about to leave the U.S. for the first time in my life. I told her that given that Trump was just elected again, that this was going to get even worse. 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The book now ends with your traveling to Mexico, applying for a D-3 waiver, and getting an O visa. How has becoming documented changed the way you go about your life? To be honest, I'm still, I think, adjusting to that reality. The biggest change was getting a real ID. You know, I live on Alaska and Delta airlines. I go back and forth between New York and the Bay Area. I travel a lot, speaking to groups, going to places that maybe I'm not supposed to be going to in the country because people are not as welcoming to immigrants. So that's a really big, practical change. The visa is valid for three years and then I have to renew it. And I think that's kind of where I'm at with that — just trying to understand that America is not necessarily a guarantee. It never is. Home is a big theme of the book; it's literally the first line and the last line. 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CNBC

14 minutes ago

• CNBC

Why Cramer thinks Wall Street is actually going higher after the U.S. bombed Iran

Wall Street's positive reaction to Saturday's U.S. bombings in Iran suggests the oil-rich Mideast state is "not as relevant" to the stock market as it used to be, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday. Indeed, U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate and global standard Brent were modestly lower early Monday, and the S & P 500 pushed higher. Both crude contracts came off their multi-month highs seen overnight following several sessions of volatile trading since Israel first attacked Iran's nuclear facilities on June 13. On Monday afternoon, both WTI and Brent moved further to the downside — off more than 4.5% around 1:30 p.m. ET — after Iran claimed that it struck a U.S. military base in Qatar with missiles. Qatar's military said, however, that its air defense successfully intercepted the missile attack, and no casualties were reported. The market has drifted between green and red for parts of Monday's session, but spiked higher in afternoon trading as oil moved sharply lower. It's a reflection of the dynamic the Club has called out over the past week as the Israel-Iran conflict escalated: Oil prices will heavily influence the stock market in a tense geopolitical moment like this. @CL.1 1D mountain WTI one day trading Oil analyst Helima Croft said in a CNBC interview that energy traders are looking for an off-ramp to the conflict, and some people might view this Iranian attack as being able to say, "OK, we're done for now." In a likely worst-case scenario for the oil market, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, the only way to ship crude from the oil-rich Persian Gulf to the rest of the globe. Around 20% of global crude consumption flowed through the waterway last year, according to the Energy Information Administration . President Donald Trump said in a social media post Monday that "everyone" should keep oil prices low, and doing otherwise would "play into the hands of the enemy." "I'm just saying to myself, 'Did nothing happen this weekend?' And I think that the answer is, this is not China. This is not rare earth. This is not Taiwan," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street," before the U.S. market officially opened for trading. "It's not strategic. It is tactical, and given that it is tactical, people just say, 'All right. Let's see how that plays out.'" U.S. stocks ultimately opened higher Monday in the first session since the U.S. on Saturday struck three Iranian nuclear sites and entered Israel's war with Iran. "This is not as relevant to our markets as it might have been at one time," Cramer said. The S & P 500 was up more than 0.7% at Monday's highs of the session. .SPX 1D mountain S & P 500 one day trading One of the biggest reasons for the measured reaction, according to Cramer, is that the global energy market looks a lot different now than it did decades ago, thanks to the rise in U.S. oil production. At the moment, it doesn't look like the U.S. will see any substantial oil supply shocks, with Cramer saying there's a belief that the U.S. has "plenty of oil." As investors monitor the Middle East, Cramer pointed to a flurry of positive headlines for individual companies that have lifted their stocks. They included strong earnings Friday from grocery giant Kroger , a report of potential consolidation in the banking sector, and Melius Research's upgrade of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices . "There's nothing which just says, '[Iran] is going to cast a pall on the following companies.' So, I want very much to find out where the Achilles' heel is for the market. But it's not stablecoins. It's not mergers. It's not anything." (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.