Iran and the United States held talks in the Sultanate of Oman on Saturday in an attempt to start talks on Tehran’s fast -moving nuclear program.
Even before the talks, there was a dispute on how the conversation would take place. President Donald Trump insisted that there would be direct talks. However, Iran’s Foreign Minister said that there would be indirect conversation through a mediator.
The difference may seem smaller, but it matters. The indirect dialogue has not made any progress since Trump, unilaterally withd the US in 2018 from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country. He again suggested that military action against Iran should remain a possibility, while insisting that he still believed that Iran’s 85 -year -old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could write a new deal by writing a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Khamenei has warned that Iran will respond to any attack with its attack.
Here are the letters, Iran’s nuclear program and the tension that prevent the relationship between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Why did Trump write a letter?
Trump sent a letter to Khamenei on March 5, then gave a television interview the next day in which he accepted to send it. He said: “I have written a letter to him,” I hope you are going to talk because if we have to go military, it is going to be a terrible thing. “
Since returning to the White House, the President has been emphasizing for interaction, increasing the restrictions and suggesting the military strike by Israel or the US, which can target the Iranian nuclear sites.
During his first term, a previous letter by Trump gave an angry reply to the supreme leader.
But in his first term, Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un due to face-to-face meetings, although Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program did not make a deal to limit, which is capable of reaching the continental US.
How did Iran react?
Iranian President Masood Peseshian dismissed direct talks with the United States on Tehran’s nuclear program.
“We avoid conversations; it is a violation of promises that have caused issues for us so far,” Peseshkian said in a television comment during a cabinet meeting. “They have to prove that they can build confidence.”
Khameni reacted to comments by renewing his threat of military action by Trump.
The supreme leader said, “They threaten the acts of mischief, but we are not completely certain that such action will be taken.” “We do not consider that the trouble will come from outside. However, if this happens, they will undoubtedly face a strong retaliatory strike.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmel Bagi went ahead.
“An open threat to ‘bombing’ by the head of a major state against Iran is a shocking for the very essence of international peace and security,” he wrote on the social platform X. “Violence gives rise to violence, forgets peace peace. America can choose the course … and accept the results.”
The state -owned Tehran Times newspaper cited a source, claiming that Iran had “read missiles with the ability to attack the US -related positions”. As the US has deployed Stealth B -2 bombers in Diego Garcia within the striking distance of both Iran and Yemen -backed rebels of Iran and Yemen, which the US has been bombing since March 15.
Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry about the West?
Iran has insisted for decades and said that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials threatened to carry forward the nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium near a 60%arms-grade level, to do so without a nuclear weapon program in the world.
Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and maintain uranium stockpile of 300 kg (661 pounds). The final report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kg (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of 60% purity.
American intelligence agencies have been assessed that Iran has so far launched a weapon program, but “activities have been done that are in a better position to produce a nuclear equipment, if she opt for doing so.”
Ali Larizani, advisor to the supreme Iran’s supreme leader, warned in a television interview that his country has the ability to make nuclear weapons, but it is not chasing it and there is no problem with the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency. However, he said that if the US or Israel had to attack Iran on the issue, the country would have no option but to move towards nuclear weapons development.
“If you make a mistake about Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, as it should defend itself,” he said.
Why are relations between Iran and America so bad?
Iran was once one of the top allies in the United States under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who bought American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run the post of secret hearing secrets monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had influenced the 1953 coup that strengthened Shah’s rule.
But in January 1979, Shah escaped from Iran, badly ill with cancer because massive performances were swept away against his rule. The Islamic Revolution formed the democratic government of Iran under the leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini.
Later that year, university students surpassed the US embassy in Tehran, searched for Shah’s extradition and instigated the 444-day hostage crisis, seeing diplomatic relations between Iran and the US. The 1980s Iran-Iraq war saw America back to Saddam Hussain. During the conflict, the “Tanker War” launched a one -day attack to the US, which crippled Iran into the sea, while the US later shot an Iranian commercial airliner.
Iran and the United States have seen in the years between enmity and disgusting diplomacy, when Tehran signed a nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015. But Trump unilaterally withdrew to the US, which is still increasing tension in the Middle East.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
