Iran seeks fair, equitable negotiations with US

Iran’s president said on Tuesday he instructed the country’s foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States, the first clear sign from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate as tensions remain high with Washington after the Mideast country’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month.

The announcement marked a major turn for reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who broadly had warned Iranians for weeks that the turmoil in his country had gone beyond his control. It also signals that the president received support from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for talks that the 86-year-old cleric previously had dismissed. Turkey had been working behind the scenes to make the talks happen there later this week as U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region.

But whether Iran and the US can reach an agreement remains to be seen, particularly as President Donald Trump now has included Iran’s nuclear program in a list of demands from Tehran in any talks. Trump ordered the bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in June.

Iran’s president signals talks are possible. Writing on X, Pezeshkian said in English and Farsi that the decision came after “requests from friendly Governments in the region to respond to the proposal by the President of the United States for negotiations.” “I have instructed my Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided that a suitable environment exists - one free from threats and unreasonable expectations - to pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, prudence, and expediency,” he said.

The US has yet to acknowledge the talks will take place. A semiofficial news agency in Iran on Monday reported - then later deleted without explanation - that Pezeshkian had issued such an order to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who held multiple rounds of talks with Witkoff before the 12-day war.

Khamenei adviser speaks on the nuclear issue. Late Monday, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, aired an interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top Khamenei adviser on security.  Shamkhani, who now sits on the country’s Supreme National Security Council and who in the 1980s led Iran’s navy, wore a naval uniform as he spoke.

He suggested if the talks happened, they would be indirect at the beginning, then moving to direct talks if a deal appeared to be attainable. Direct talks with the US long have been a highly charged political issue within Iran’s theocracy, with reformists like Pezeshkian pushing for them and hard-liners dismissing them.  The talks would solely focus on nuclear issues, he added. Asked about whether Russia could take Iran’s enriched uranium like it did in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Shamkhani dismissed the idea, saying there was “no reason” to do so. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday said Russia had “long offered these services as a possible option that would alleviate certain irritants for a number of countries.” “Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, will not seek a nuclear weapon and will never stockpile nuclear weapons, but the other side must pay a price in return for this,” he said.  Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

The International Atomic Energy Agency had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that wasn’t armed with the bomb.  Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the June war. President Masoud Pezeshkian.