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The writer is Foreign Minister of Iran
In just five meetings over nine weeks, the US special representative Steve Witkoff and I more than in four years after nuclear negotiations with the failed bidges. We were about to have a historical breakthrough. To deal with us that Iran could one day redirect its peaceful nuclear program, we have conducted detailed discussions – including the future of Iranian uranium enrichment. There were several ideas for a win-win solution that were brought up by both sides and Oman.
We are just as important to the end of sanctions and the participation of the United States in more comprehensive economic cooperation, which was an opportunity for trillion dollars. Iran was open to a cooperation that would electrify the Iranian economy and would appeal to the priority of US President Donald Trump to revive the dying American industries such as the nuclear energy sector.
Things looked up with a flood of news that was exchanged. But just 48 hours before a decisive sixth meeting, Israel started an unprofitable attack on my country. In addition to the protected nuclear facilities, houses, hospitals, our essential energy infrastructure and even prisons were bombed. Coward murders of academics and families were also carried out. This was a profound betrayal of diplomacy. When the dialogue of the Iran-US dialogue finally gained dynamics, the ruthless bombing sent a clear message: Israel prefers conflicts to the solution.
Israel wrongly claimed that his air strikes aim to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. In reality, Iran, as the signer of the non-distribution contract, has always committed a peaceful nuclear program under UN monitoring. Like every worthy nation that would be attacked, Iran violently opposed aggression until Israel had to rely on President Trump to end the war he initiated.
Iran is wrongly illegal and is now twice careful. Our commitment to responsible action in order to avoid a regional war on a full scale should not be misinterpreted as a weakness. We will defeat every future attack on our people. And if the day ever comes, we will reveal our real skills to dispel all illusions about the power of Iran.
To mention unnecessarily that progress in the conversations between Iran and the USA have been sabotaged. Not in Iran, but by an alleged ally of America. This is not to mention the fateful decision of the United States to enable itself to undermine its own strikes in order to undermine international law and the NPT.
Although Iran has received news in the past few days that point out that the United States may be willing to return to negotiations, how can we trust another commitment? In 2015, Iran signed a comprehensive nuclear agreement with six countries, including the United States, which Washington lifted one side three years later. And after we agree to the new negotiations in good faith, we saw how our estate was replied with an attack by two nuclear military.
Iran is still interested in diplomacy, but we have a good reason to have doubts about further dialogue. If there is a desire to solve this mutually, the United States should show a real willingness for a fair agreement. Washington should also know that his actions have changed the situation in the past few weeks.
The Iranians will never agree to the task. Iran is a millennia -old civilization that has overcome countless invasions and appears more every time. We always preferred peace, but we were always those who decide when and how aggression against our people ends. As the miscalculations of the Israeli regime have shown, the Iranians always gather in accordance with aggressors.
The negotiations that are held in the shadow of the war are naturally unstable, and the dialogue, which is pursued in the middle of threats, is never real. In order for diplomacy to be successful, it must be based on mutual respect. It can also not survive through third parties who fear a solution, always eternal sabotage. The American people deserve to know that their country is pushed in the direction of a completely avoidable and unjustified war through a foreign regime that does not share their interests. As for Washington, it should know that aggression has done our scientists and their achievements more than ever.
Trump’s promise of “America First” is in practice in “Israel First”. After Americans have seen the victim of thousands of American life and the waste of trillions of their taxpayers’ dollars in our region, the Americans seem to have enough. The way to peace requires recognition in the USA that the respectful dialogue, and not ruthless compulsion, is the only sustainable path forward.
The choice is America. Will the United States finally choose diplomacy? Or does it stay in the war of another?
