TEHRAN
\nIranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the start of nuclear talks with the United States, the news agency Fars reported on Monday. Following the Iranian authorities\u2019 response to anti-government protests that peaked last month, Trump has threatened military action and ordered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East.
\nWhile piling pressure on Iran, Trump has maintained he is hopeful of making a deal and Tehran has also insisted it wants diplomacy while vowing an unbridled response to any aggression. \u201cPresident Pezeshkian has ordered the initiation of nuclear negotiations with the United States,\u201d the agency reported, citing an unnamed government source.
\n\u201cThe source said Iran and the US will hold talks strictly within the framework of the nuclear issue,\u201d Fars added, without specifying a date. The report was also carried by the government newspaper Iran and the reformist daily Shargh.
\nIran said earlier on Monday it was working on a method and framework for negotiations that would be ready in the coming days, with messages between the two sides relayed through regional players.
\n\u201cSeveral points have been addressed and we are examining and finalising the details of each stage in the diplomatic process, which we hope to conclude in the coming days,\u201d foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said, without giving details on the content of any negotiations.
\nTrump had warned \u201ctime is running out\u201d for Iran to reach a deal on its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb. But Baqaei said Tehran \u201cnever accepts ultimatums\u201d and that he could not confirm any such message was received. Regional players have pushed for diplomacy to defuse tensions.
\nIranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was in Turkiye last week and held further calls with his Egyptian, Saudi and Turkish counterparts, he said on Telegram. \u201cPresident Trump said no nuclear weapons, and we fully agree. We fully agree with that.
\nThat could be a very good deal,\u201d Araghchi told CNN on Sunday. \u201cOf course, in return, we expect sanctions lifting. So, that deal is possible. Let\u2019s not talk about impossible things.\u201d
\nBaqaei said the rallying of neighbouring states around a diplomatic solution demonstrated a fear that any US attack would drag the region into conflict, echoing Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who warned on Sunday that a US attack would trigger a \u201cregional war\u201d. The supreme leader also likened the recent protests to a \u201ccoup\u201d attempt.
\nAuthorities have said the protests, which were sparked by economic strain and exploded in size and intensity over several days in early January, were \u201criots\u201d inflamed by its arch foes, the United States and Israel.
\nTehran has acknowledged thousands of deaths during the protests, and on Sunday, the presidency published the names of 2,986 people out of the 3,117 whom authorities said were killed in the unrest.
\nAuthorities insist most were members of the security forces and innocent bystanders, attributing the violence to \u201cterrorist acts\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TEHRAN Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian ordered the start of nuclear talks with the United States, the news agency Fars reported on Monday. Following the Iranian authorities\u2019 response to anti-government protests that peaked last month, Trump has threatened military action and ordered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier group to the Middle East. While piling pressure …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":93129,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93140,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93122\/revisions\/93140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}