EU’s top diplomat urges Iran to resume nuclear talks
The European Union’s (EU) foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged Iran to resume talks on ending the country’s nuclear program while speaking with Tehran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
“Negotiations on ending Iran’s nuclear programme should restart as soon as possible. Cooperation with @iaeaorg must resume. The EU is ready to facilitate this. Any threats to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty don’t help to lower tensions,” Kallas said in a Tuesday post on X.
Araghchi and Kallas spoke over the phone on Tuesday. Iran’s foreign minister criticized the approach “some” European countries and International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi took during the recent clash between Israel and Iran. Araghchi did not name the countries.
Araghchi told Kallas that the approach of those countries is complicating current conditions and making the path to striking a diplomatic solution more challenging.
The United States military hit Iran’s three vital nuclear facilities last month as Israel and Iran traded military strikes, an escalation that halted Washington’s two-month-long nuclear negotiations with Tehran that were headed by Araghchi and President Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Trump and his allies have touted the U.S. strikes on June 21 as a successful operation that set back Iran’s nuclear program by years and have slammed the leaked intelligence report that stated that the airstrikes delayed Tehran’s nuclear program by a few months.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi said in an interview on Monday that Tehran is open to holding nuclear talks with Washington if the U.S. agrees not to fire more strikes.
“We are hearing from Washington, telling us that they want to talk. Right now, we are seeking an answer to this question: Are we going to see a repetition of an act of aggression while we are engaging in dialog? They have not made their position clear yet,” Takht-Ravanchi said in an interview with the BBC.
Takht-Ravanchi added that Iran has to have the ability to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.
Next week, Trump is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where the two leaders will talk about trade, the developments regarding Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and the aftermath of Jerusalem and Washington’s strikes on Iran.