Trump says US & Iran to meet this week, Iran “not there” yet on deal (updated)
The Iranians “have given us their thoughts on the deal,” Trump said today. “I said, you know, it’s just not acceptable.”
President Trump said today that the US and Iran will meet on Thursday (May 12). Iran’s Foreign Ministry subsequently said that US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to hold indirect talks mediated by Oman on Sunday.
Trump also said that Iran had given the United States their thoughts on a prospective deal, and he found some of their terms not acceptable.
Trump said that he had discussed Iran among other topics in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, in what he described as a very smooth call.
The Iranians “are good negotiators, but they’re tough,” Trump said at an investment event at the White House today when he took a few questions from reporters. “Sometimes they can be too tough. That’s the problem.”
“We’re trying to make a deal so that there’s no destruction and death,” he said. “And we’ve told them that, and I’ve told them that. I hope that’s the way it works out, but it might not work out that way. We’ll soon find out.”
Meeting Thursday
“We have a meeting with Iran on Thursday,” Trump said. “So we’re going to wait ‘til Thursday.”
Asked the main impediment to a deal, Trump responded: “Well, they’re just asking for things that you can’t do. They don’t want to give up. They seek enrichment. We can’t have enrichment. We want just the opposite. And so far, they’re not there.”
“I hate to say that, because the alternative is a very, very dire one, but they’re not there,” he said. “They have given us their thoughts on the deal. I said, you know, it’s just not acceptable.”
Keep in mind
An expert source said it is his understanding that Trump is not as hung up on no enrichment as a red line as his public comments might suggest.
US proposal envisioned two-step process
“What has been put on the table for the Iranians..basically…revolves around the concept of a two-step process in which initially, Iran would accept restrictions and transparency measures before it would phase out its sovereign enrichment program and eventually wraps it into a regional consortium,” said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran program at the International Crisis Group.
“Now, where the consortium would be, whether all the elements of a nuclear fuel cycle will be in the same country or divided between different partners, how much of its own enrichment or enrichment related infrastructure Iran would be able to preserve, all of these things, I think, are still unclear.”
That explains Iran’s reaction of basically asking for more clarification, he said.
“A lot of these things are kind of left in a pretty broad and non-specific way in the text hat the US has put on the table,” Vaez said. “But my understanding is that there’s also a lot of disappointment on the Iranian side,” including “on the scope and sequencing of sanctions relief” in the US proposal.
IAEA Board meets
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said today that a new nuclear agreement with Iran would need to take into account the advances that Iran’s program has made since Trump in 2018 quit the 2016 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“The JCPOA was … very carefully designed to be applied to a very specific type of Iran program, which is completely different now,” Grossi told journalists at a press conference at the opening of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna today. “So even if you wanted to revive it, it would not be enough, because now they have new technologies and so on.”
Grossi said no other country in the world was amassing such quantities of 60% enriched uranium (just short of 90% weapons grade), as Iran currently is.
Separately, Grossi told the Jerusalem Post that he believed if Iran attacks Iran’s nuclear program, Iran could accelerate the development of nuclear weapons.
“A strike could potentially have an amalgamating effect, solidifying Iran’s determination…to pursue a nuclear weapon or withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” Grossi told the paper.
“I’m telling you this because they have told me so directly,” he said.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council issued a statement today saying in part that if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear program, Iran will strike Israel’s nuclear program. Iran claimed in recent days to have obtained a trove of documents about Israel’s nuclear program.
“The tactic to ask for Israel’s denuclearization is aimed at demonstrating to the U.S. that its zero enrichment demand is equally unreasonable,” the ICG’s Vaez told me.
The apparent Iranian “heist of Israel’s nuclear documents is retaliation for Israel’s stealing of Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018,” Vaez said. “It is also a means of deterring Israel from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities by demonstrating that they know how and where to retaliate in kind.”
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