Iran The president said Tuesday he had directed the country’s secretary of state to conduct “fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States. This is the first clear sign from Tehran that it wants to try to negotiate as tensions with Washington remain high.
This comes after the Middle Eastern country’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month.
The announcement marked a major turnaround for reform-minded President Masoud Pezeshkian, who had widely warned Iranians for weeks that unrest in his country was beyond his control.
It also signals that the president received support from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for talks that the 86-year-old cleric had previously rejected.
But possible talks were questioned at the time US Central Command said Tuesday that a U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching an American aircraft carrier.
In an emailed statement, U.S. Central Command said the drone approached the aircraft carrier “aggressively” with “unclear intent” and “continued to fly toward the ship despite de-escalatory actions by U.S. forces operating in international waters.”
Turkey had been working behind the scenes to hold the talks there later this week while U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region. A Turkish official later said the location of the talks was uncertain but that Türkiye was ready to support the process. The official did not provide any further information.
Foreign ministers from Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also been invited to attend the talks should they take place, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
However, it remains to be seen whether Iran and the US can reach an agreement, especially since US President Donald Trump has now added Iran’s nuclear program to Tehran’s list of demands in any talks.
During the 12-day war Israel began against Iran in June, Trump ordered the bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iran’s president signals that talks are possible
In a letter
“I have instructed my Secretary of State to conduct fair and equitable negotiations, provided there is an appropriate environment – an environment free of threats and unreasonable expectations – guided by the principles of dignity, prudence and expediency,” he said.
The US has not yet confirmed that the talks will take place. A semi-official news agency in Iran reported on Monday – later deleted without explanation – that Pezeshkian had issued such an order to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who held several rounds of talks with Witkoff before the 12-day war.
On Tuesday, Araghchi spoke by phone with his counterparts from Oman, Qatar, Turkey and Kuwait but made no mention of a possible venue.
Khamenei adviser speaks on nuclear issue
Late Monday, pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, broadcast an interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top Khamenei security adviser.
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Shamkhani, who now sits on the country’s Supreme National Security Council and led Iran’s navy in the 1980s, wore a naval uniform during his speech.
He suggested that if talks were to take place, they would initially be indirect and then move on to direct talks if an agreement appeared to be achievable. Direct talks with the US have long been a highly charged political issue within the Iranian theocracy, with reformists like Pezeshkian pushing for them and hardliners opposing them.
The talks would focus exclusively on nuclear issues, he added.
Asked whether Russia could take over Iran’s enriched uranium, as it did under Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Shamkhani dismissed the idea, saying there was “no reason” to do so. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russia “has long offered these services as a possible option that would alleviate certain annoyances for a number of countries.”
“Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, will not seek nuclear weapons and will never stockpile nuclear weapons, but the other side must pay a price,” he said.
Iran had enriched uranium to a purity of up to 60 percent, a small technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency had said that Iran was the only country in the world that had achieved enrichment at this level and was not armed with the bomb.
Iran rejects IAEA requests to inspect sites bombed in June War.
“The amount of enriched uranium remains unknown as part of the stockpile lies under rubble and there is still no initiative to extract it as it is extremely dangerous,” Shamkhani said.
Witkoff travels to Israel
Witkoff is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli security officials on Tuesday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly on the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While in Israel, Witkoff will meet with the head of the Mossad intelligence agency and the Israeli military’s chief of staff, according to another official who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Israel is expected to demand that any deal with Iran include withdrawing enriched uranium from the country, halting uranium enrichment, limiting ballistic missile production and ending support for Tehran’s proxy.
However, in his interview, Shakhani rejected abandoning uranium enrichment – a major obstacle in previous talks with the US. In November, Araghchi said Iran was not carrying out uranium enrichment in the country because of the US bombing of nuclear sites.
Witkoff will travel to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, later in the week for talks between Russia and Ukraine, the official said.
“We’re in talks with Iran, we’ll see how it all plays out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. Asked what his threshold was for military action against Iran, he declined to elaborate.
“I would like to see a deal negotiated,” Trump said. “Right now we’re talking to them, we’re talking to Iran, and if we could work something out that would be great. And if we don’t, bad things would probably happen.”
Mike Pompeo, a hardliner on Iran who served as CIA director and secretary of state during Trump’s first term, said it was “inconceivable that an agreement could be reached.”
“I think they could come to some agreement,” Pompeo said at the World Summit of Governments in Dubai. “But to believe that there is a long-term solution that will actually bring stability and peace to this region while the Ayatollah is still in power is something that I pray for but that I find unimaginable.”
Also on Tuesday, a ship traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, reported receiving calls on the radio from “numerous small armed vessels,” the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Center said.
There was no information identifying the ship, which continued into the Persian Gulf. The site of the incident appeared to be in Iranian territorial waters, where officials had warned in recent days of a naval exercise by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
