President Tayyip Erdogan told his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a call yesterday that Turkey was ready to play a facilitator role between Iran and the United States to ease the tensions between the two sides, the Turkish presidency said.
Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi landed in Istanbul earlier in the day. He said Iran is prepared for the resumption of talks with the US, but they should be fair and not include Iran’s defence capabilities.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he planned to speak with Iran, even as the US sent another warship to the Middle East and the Pentagon chief said the military would be ready to carry out whatever the president decided.
Trump -- who had previously warned time was “running out” for Tehran -- appeared to slightly pull back, saying: “We have a group headed out to a place called Iran, and hopefully we won’t have to use it.”
One of the main demands by the US to resume talks with Iran is curbing its missile programme, a senior Iranian official told Reuters last week. Iran rejects that demand.
“If negotiations are fair and on an equal footing, Iran is ready to participate in such talks,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a press conference with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Istanbul.
“We see that Israel is trying to persuade the US to launch a military attack on Iran... We hope the US administration will act with common sense and not allow this to happen,” Fidan said.
Araqchi also said no talks between Tehran and Washington were currently arranged, and reiterated that Tehran was ready for either negotiations or warfare.
As Washington dialled up its rhetoric and Iran issued stark threats, UN chief Antonio Guterres has called for nuclear negotiations to “avoid a crisis that could have devastating consequences in the region”.
The EU’s decision on Thursday to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation is a “major strategic mistake”, Araghchi warned. The Iranian army also blasted the move as “irresponsible and spite-driven” while Israel hailed it as “historic”.
A US military destroyer has docked in the port of Eilat, Israel’s ynet news website reported yesterday, citing the military.
The news website said the destroyer’s arrival at the southern port, on the Gulf of Aqaba and near Israel’s southern border crossings with Egypt and Jordan, was pre-planned and part of cooperation between the Israeli and US militaries.
US officials say Trump is reviewing his options but has not decided whether to strike Iran. US-Iranian tensions have soared in recent weeks after a bloody crackdown on protests across Iran by its clerical authorities.
