This is the backdrop for our officials’ upcoming, new direct negotiations between Iran and U.S. They’ll be meeting in Rome on Friday, May 23. This critical assembly comes at a moment of increasing militarization and repression. Military threats and unilateral economic sanctions have characterized US-Iran relations since mid-2018.
Notably, former President Donald Trump has long threatened an all-out military assault on Iran. He wants an agreement that ends the country’s nuclear development. This policy began with Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Secondly, he has been unambiguous on this: he will not permit Tehran to acquire a nuclear weapon. His administration has pursued a broad campaign of sanctions against the Iranian economy in order to break the country’s will to resist.
Iran’s response
In the face of increasing pressure through sanctions and military threats, Iranian officials have continued to stand their ground on uranium enrichment. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled that Iran should not seek US permission to enrich uranium. In short, he appealed to the country’s prerogative to behave like an independent country. This attitude reveals Tehran’s inflexible disposition on the nuclear program—one that Iran asserts is for peaceful purposes only.
That’s why the upcoming conversations are so incredibly important. US officials are signaling that they want a much larger rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, going so far as to insist on an end to Iran’s uranium enrichment altogether. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has already done his best to manage expectations by suggesting that no one should expect Iran to stop enrichment. Most importantly, he emphasized that “there is no situation” in which Iran will renounce its right to enrich uranium.
Iran holds the line in the face of US intimidation. It claims the right to preemptively strike any country it believes threatens it and the ability to defend itself from any military attack. Trump’s bombastic rhetoric on Iran’s nuclear potential has been rightly condemned, but it has been rejected outright by Khamenei, who has called it “nonsense.”
Steve Witkoff, an influential figure in US policy circles, has articulated a stringent stance on uranium enrichment, stating that Washington “cannot allow even 1 percent of an enrichment capability.” This hardline position highlights the continued standstill in these negotiations, with Tehran adamant that stopping enrichment is a nonstarter.
The negotiations in Rome also occur at a moment when regional tensions continue to run high. Israel is considered to have a secretive, undeclared nuclear arsenal. This misconception makes a tough Middle Eastern nuclear negotiation landscape even more extreme. The US has indicated that Iran could operate nuclear reactors for energy production if it agrees to import already enriched uranium rather than enriching it domestically.
These two nations, the world’s largest emitters and most important economies, are clearly preparing for serious talks. Indeed, the results would have a monumental influence on Middle East stability and on worldwide non-proliferation endeavours.
