- Iran’s
FM urges Trump to defy Netanyahu. - Oppose
Israeli stance on Iran nuclear talks. - Push
forward with diplomatic negotiations instead.
Araghchi was writing the day after Netanyahu met with Trump
in the US, where the Gaza peace proposal and Israel’s demands to consider
further assaults on Iran were discussed.
After combined Israeli-US attacks on Iran in June seriously
destroyed its important nuclear sites, Netanyahu says Iran might be looking to
restore its nuclear program. Additionally, Netanyahu has been voicing
increasing alarm about the threat that the neighboring nation’s missile
development poses to Israel. Reports of protests in the Tehran market
continuing into a third day over the country’s declining currency and growing
inflation will give him more confidence.
On Monday, speaking alongside Netanyahu in Florida, Trump
said:
“I hope they’re not trying to build up again because, if
they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that
buildup.”
However, Araghchi directly urges Trump to disregard Israeli
cautions and acknowledge that there is a limited window of opportunity to
resume talks with Iran. It is one of his most direct pleas to Washington to
resume negotiations and include Iran in a Middle East that has been
recalibrated.
He maintains that Iran is still amenable to negotiations as
long as a surrender is not necessary and asserts that talks can prevent an
unneeded crisis.
He says he
“has been made aware that there is an
unprecedented willingness amongst mutual friends of Iran and the US to
facilitate dialogue and underwrite the full and verifiable implementation of
any negotiated outcome,”
without mentioning any particular nation.
Araghchi makes no indication that Iran is willing to
compromise on its insistence on its right to enrich uranium domestically for
civilian use, the subject that plagued US-Iran negotiations. However, his words
suggest that Gulf governments would be willing to offer guarantees concerning
any future nuclear program. He contends that access to every facet of a
peaceful nuclear program is a right shared by all parties to the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty.
According to Araghchi, any future negotiations might occur
in a more favorable setting because the June attacks on Iran altered diplomatic
ties throughout the Middle East, demonstrating Iran’s strategic strength to
oppose Israel while US animosity for Israeli brinkmanship is intensifying.
He writes:
“The shifts in our region can enable implementation of
understandings in a whole new way. For those willing to go where no one has
gone before, there is a brief window of opportunity. Fortune favours the brave
and it takes a lot more guts to break an evil cycle than to simply perpetuate
it.”
Those in Israel and Washington who believe Iran is weaker
than Araghchi claims will point to a persistent crackdown on dissent, sporadic
protests, spiraling executions, and an inability to escape the cage of US
economic sanctions.
However, Araghchi claims that Israel has repeatedly misled
Washington “into believing that Iran was nearing collapse, that the 2015
nuclear deal was a lifeline for us, and that abandoning the accord would compel
us to quickly concede.” These myths encouraged Washington to forgo a
functional diplomatic framework in favor of “maximum pressure,” which
only resulted in “maximum resistance.”
What are the counterarguments of the weakness claims?
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi counters narratives
from Israel and Washington portraying Iran as weakened by portraying U.S.”
maximum pressure” warrants as ineffective, fostering” maximum
resistance” rather than cession.
Araghchi dismisses Israeli assertions of Iran’s imminent
collapse citing internal crackdowns, demurrers, and prosecutions as inflated
myths that misled the U.S. into scrapping the 2015 JCPOA, believing it propped
up Tehran; he argues this strategy boomeranged, strengthening Iran’s
resoluteness post-sanctions.
He claims Israel falsely induced Washington that abandoning
the deal would force quick concessions, ignoring Tehran’s domestic uranium
enrichment rights under NPT and indigenous alliances, amid ongoing IAEA reports
of advanced stashes despite profitable insulation.
