As the violent escalation refuses to die down, senior US administration officials claimed on Wednesday that after three rounds of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear programme collapsed, Washington concluded that Tehran was “never serious about giving up its enrichment ambitions,” and launched Operation Epic Fury within days of the final meeting.
American diplomats sat with Iran officials to reach a deal for weeks
For weeks, American diplomats sat across the table with officials from Iran and tried to reach a deal. They travelled to Oman and went to Switzerland. They offered incentives, laid out red lines, and kept coming back. In the end, they concluded it was all a waste of time and reported their findings to President Donald Trump.
Briefing reporters, including ANI, on Tuesday (local time) about the background of the US-led attack on Iran, senior US officials walked reporters through exactly what happened during those three rounds of talks and explained why they believe Iran was never serious about giving up its nuclear programme.
US Officials call pattern of delay, threats, and “false pretences” on Iranian side
Officials described a pattern of delay, threats, and “false pretences” on the Iranian side during talks held in Oman and Switzerland.
According to US officials, the first round began with what they termed a “threat dressed as a negotiation.” Iran’s lead negotiator, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, opened by asserting that uranium enrichment was his country’s “inalienable right.”
He also stated that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 per cent — approximately 460 kilograms — was enough material for eleven nuclear bombs, and warned that the United States would have to “pay dearly” to retrieve it.
Iran would never allow America to achieve through diplomacy
At one point, Araghchi remarked that Iran would “never allow America to achieve through diplomacy what it couldn’t achieve militarily,” though he later sought to retract the comment. “That was a pretty strong statement about where they felt this negotiation was going,” one US official said.
Before the second round, Washington asked Tehran to submit a written draft proposal within five to six days. Iran agreed, but no document arrived, the US claims. “We have an aircraft carrier out there that they’re complaining about, a second one on the way — and we can’t get a draft agreement out of them,” one official said. “What does that tell you about their intentions?”
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