White House: No talks with Iran until military action ‘runs its course’ |
White House: No talks with Iran until military action ‘runs its course’
Diplomatic talks with Iran are off until the U.S. and Israel military action runs its course, a senior Trump administration official told reporters in a briefing on Monday.
President Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, have not spoken with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi since the start of military operations over the weekend. Witkoff and Kushner have also not held conversations with Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Larijani.
Nearly a dozen countries have offered to serve as mediators, the official said.
“We’re not using anyone as an interlocutor. This is a military action, and it’s got to run its course.”
Witkoff and Kushner were negotiating with the Iranians over their nuclear program before Trump ordered strikes against Iran on Friday.
The U.S. goals in the talks were to get Iran to agree to a deal where it would give up what it claims is its right to enrich uranium, the fuel needed for a nuclear bomb.
Iran has said it does not want to acquire a nuclear weapon and any enrichment is for peaceful, civilian purposes. But Trump’s negotiators said that the Iranian’s were “playing games” and using “a lot of tricks” and “subterfuge” to preserve their ability to enrich uranium to a high percentage and stockpile it.
Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium remains an issue.
The senior Trump administration official said the U.S. is concerned about 10,000 kilograms of enriched uranium. This includes 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, 1,000 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium and 8,500 kilograms of 3.67 enriched uranium. Ninety-percent enriched uranium is considered weapons grade.
The official said that most of the enriched uranium is in Iran’s nuclear sites of Isfahan and some are at Natanz and at Fordow – the three sites bombed by the U.S. in June and which Trump claimed “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.
The official said that diluting the uranium is the safest course of action, and that extracting it can be a dangerous and “a long and cumbersome process.”
The official said that “in theory,” if the U.S. had physical control of that territory, U.S. officials could dilute the uranium on the premises.
“I think the first question is, where is it? The second question is, how do we get to it? How do we get physical control? Then after that, it would be a decision of the President and the department of War or CIA, as to whether we want to physically transport it or dilute it on premises,” the official said.
“And I think we can do either.”
Trump has offered a range of objectives for the military strikes. They include eliminating Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, destroying its Navy, preventing it from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon, and ending its support for terrorist proxies across the region.
He’s also called for Iranians to rise up and take over their government, but to wait until the bombs stop falling.
The president has told journalists that he viewed Venezuela as a model for Iran – praising the U.S. military operation that invaded the country, captured then-president Nicolas Maduro and coerced the existing regime to capitulate to U.S. demands.
“We have [interim President] Delcy [Rodriguez], who’s been very good… the relationship’s been great,” Trump said on Monday, addressing reporters in the Oval Office.
But there’s no signal yet who could be the Iranian version of Venezuela’s Rodriguez. Trump said three of his preferred candidates were killed in initial strikes, and a second group “may be dead also.”
Trump said it would be more appropriate for a leader to take over Iran who is already in the country, downplaying that the exiled crown prince of Iran, Reza Pehlavi, could return and rule the country.
“It would seem to me that somebody that’s there, that’s currently popular if there’s such a person, but we have people like that, people that were more moderate, these are radical lunatics,” Trump said.
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