number of casualties<\/a> during January\u2019s unrest is simply the repetition of \u2018big lies\u2019,\u201d Esmaeil Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, wrote on X, comparing the administration\u2019s approach to the propaganda tactics of Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler\u2019s minister of information.<\/p>\nUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Saint Kitts and Nevis, said the talks in Geneva would focus primarily on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme and reiterated Washington\u2019s concern about Iranian ballistic missiles, which he said Tehran was attempting to develop into intercontinental-range weapons.<\/p>\n
Iranian insistence on excluding the missile programme from negotiations, he said, was \u201ca big, big problem\u201d.<\/p>\n
The negotiations are being led on the US side by Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The first round was held in Oman on February 6, followed by a second session in Geneva on February 17.<\/p>\n
Araghchi said afterwards that the two sides had reached a tentative understanding on the broad principles that would guide further discussions, though no substantive agreement had been reached.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Tohid Asadi, reporting from Tehran, said the two sides appear far apart on the core issues.<\/p>\n
He pointed to disagreements over uranium enrichment and Iran\u2019s demand for verifiable guarantees that sanctions would actually be lifted before it makes concessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are other controversial issues beyond the nuclear dossier, related to foreign assistance, ballistic missiles, defence capabilities, as well as regional activities of the country,\u201d Asadi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is gaps obviously exist,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it remains to be seen whether diplomatic engagement could pave the way for a final solution between Washington and Tehran. Until then and for the time being, if anything is certain, that is uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The status of Iran\u2019s nuclear infrastructure remains unclear.<\/p>\n
Trump has claimed that US attacks on Iran last year \u201cobliterated\u201d the programme, but the comments from his top officials show Washington now views it as a growing threat. International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have not been permitted to verify what, if anything, remains at the targeted sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.<\/p>\n
US leverage<\/p>\n
Iran has warned that any US strike would prompt retaliatory attacks on American military bases throughout the Middle East, where tens of thousands of troops are deployed. Tehran has also threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which a significant share of the world\u2019s oil supply passes.<\/p>\n
US Central Command spokesman Tim Hawkins said Washington remained ready to respond to any escalation.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeterrence from our perspective comes through a show of strength,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring a time of heightened tensions, we are going to make sure that we have the forces in place to protect our troops; that\u2019s what you\u2019re seeing. Additionally, with respect to Iran \u2026 our focus remains on ensuring we have the right forces in place to protect our troops, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US has assembled its biggest deployment of aircraft and warships to the Middle East in decades.<\/p>\n
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group has been stationed in the Arabian Sea since late January, while Trump has ordered the USS Gerald R Ford \u2013 the world\u2019s largest aircraft carrier \u2013 along with three destroyers and more than 5,000 additional military personnel to the region.<\/p>\n
The build-up extends to air power.<\/p>\n
Dozens of fighter jets, including F-35s, F-22s, F-15s and F-16s, have been tracked flying to the Middle East from bases in the US and Europe, according to the Military Air Tracking Alliance, a team of open-source analysts that monitors military flight activity.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said the US was seeking to increase its leverage with the military buildup as well as the latest sanctions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hope is that Iran will come to an agreement to limit its uranium enrichment programme, and also that there can be room for negotiations later on, regarding not only its support for proxies in the region, but limiting its ballistic missile programme,\u201d Halkett said. \u201cThe US is promising, should those concessions be made, it will provide the economic relief that Iran\u2019s economy needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, too, warned of readiness to respond in the event of an attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you choose the table of diplomacy \u2013 a diplomacy in which the dignity of the Iranian nation and mutual interests are respected \u2013 we will also be at that table,\u201d he said, according to the semiofficial Student News Network. \u201cBut if you decide to repeat past experiences through deception, lies, flawed analysis and false information, and launch an attack in the midst of negotiations, you will undoubtedly taste the firm blow of the Iranian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran and the United States are set to begin a third round of nuclear negotiations in Switzerland, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,87,47,43,40,38,41,39,1032,1156],"class_list":{"0":"post-310548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-middle-east","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}