A US attack on Iran is now looking unlikely in the short term, though president Donald Trump is maintaining pressure on the regime. A second US aircraft carrier is moving to the region and at the weekend Trump said that a change in the regime in Iran is “ the best thing that could happen.”
For now, however, the talking continues, with a fresh round of negotiations in Geneva on Tuesday. Both the US and Iran have been indicating a willingness to continue negotiating, with the latter saying it is ready to accept key US demands to ban nuclear fuel enrichment in return for sanctions relief.
In a speech on Wednesday marking the 47th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted Iran was not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons . Trump, at Tuesday’s meeting in Washington with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, insisted talks will continue, but warned he may still take action if a nuclear deal is not reached. Netanyahu had reiterated his demand that Iran be forced to cut its ballistic missile programme and end support for proxy groups like Hamas and Hizbullah. However, Trump appears willing to delink the issues.
Regional allies of the US, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, although strongly opposed to Tehran’s destabilising role, have also pressed Washington to confine the talks to the nuclear programme, already hit by US bombing last year.
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What, unfortunately, neither side is now talking about is the initial rationale for the US threats – explicit promises by Trump on social media to protect demonstrators shot down in their thousands in recent protests. Although his threatened interventions seemed to have persuaded the regime to call off judicial executions of demonstrators, UN experts say some 51 people are known to be facing the death penalty in Iran after convictions for “armed rebellion”, “enmity against God”, “corruption on Earth” and espionage.
Demands for human rights and political reform in Iran do not now appear to feature on the talks agenda, despite Trump’s comments that regime change would be welcome.
