Iran to hold nuclear talks with 3 European powers on Friday
The talks scheduled for Friday come after foreign ministers of the E3 nations, as those European countries are known, as well as the European Union's foreign policy chief, held their first call on Thursday with Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi since Israel and the United States attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago.
The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear deal reached with Iran, from which the US withdrew in 2018, that had lifted sanctions on the Middle Eastern country in return for restrictions on its nuclear programme.
'The meeting between Iran, Britain, France and Germany will take place at the deputy foreign minister level,' Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, was quoted by Iranian state media as saying.
The E3 have said they would restore United Nations sanctions on Tehran by the end of August if nuclear talks that were ongoing between Iran and the US, before Israel launched a surprise attack, do not resume or fail to produce concrete results.
Iran has accused the US of complicity in the Israeli attack, which killed top Iranian military officials, nuclear scientists and hundreds of civilians. The US also launched strikes on three major Iranian nuclear sites, claiming to have 'obliterated' them. A ceasefire took effect on June 24.
'If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly, and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the 'snap-back' for which they lack absolutely moral and legal ground,' Araghchi said last week.
Before the Israel-Iran war, Tehran and Washington held five rounds of nuclear talks mediated by Oman but faced major stumbling blocks such as uranium enrichment in Iran, which Western powers want to bring down to zero to minimise any risk of weaponisation.
Tehran maintains that its nuclear programme is solely meant for civilian purposes.
Middle East assessments
Also on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin held a surprise meeting in the Kremlin with Ali Larijani, the top adviser to Iran's supreme leader on nuclear issues.
Larijani 'conveyed assessments of the escalating situation in the Middle East and around the Iranian nuclear programme', Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said of the unannounced meeting.
Putin expressed Russia's 'well-known positions on how to stabilise the situation in the region and on the political settlement of the Iranian nuclear programme', he added.
Moscow has a cordial relationship with Iran's clerical leadership and provides crucial backing for Tehran, but it did not swing forcefully behind its partner even after the US joined Israel's bombing campaign.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
4 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Iran's plan to abandon GPS is about much more than technology
For the past few years, governments across the world have paid close attention to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. There, it is said, we see the first glimpses of what warfare of the future will look like, not just in terms of weaponry, but also in terms of new technologies and tactics. Most recently, the United States-Israeli attacks on Iran demonstrated not just new strategies of drone deployment and infiltration but also new vulnerabilities. During the 12-day conflict, Iran and vessels in the waters of the Gulf experienced repeated disruptions of GPS signal. This clearly worried the Iranian authorities who, after the end of the war, began to look for alternatives. 'At times, disruptions are created on this [GPS] system by internal systems, and this very issue has pushed us toward alternative options like BeiDou,' Ehsan Chitsaz, deputy communications minister, told Iranian media in mid-July. He added that the government was developing a plan to switch transportation, agriculture and the internet from GPS to BeiDou. Iran's decision to explore adopting China's navigation satellite system may appear at first glance to be merely a tactical manoeuvre. Yet, its implications are far more profound. This move is yet another indication of a major global realignment. For decades, the West, and the US in particular, have dominated the world's technological infrastructure from computer operating systems and the internet to telecommunications and satellite networks. This has left much of the world dependent on an infrastructure it cannot match or challenge. This dependency can easily become vulnerability. Since 2013, whistleblowers and media investigations have revealed how various Western technologies and schemes have enabled illicit surveillance and data gathering on a global scale – something that has worried governments around the world. Iran's possible shift to BeiDou sends a clear message to other nations grappling with the delicate balance between technological convenience and strategic self-defence: The era of blind, naive dependence on US-controlled infrastructure is rapidly coming to an end. Nations can no longer afford to have their military capabilities and vital digital sovereignty tied to the satellite grid of a superpower they cannot trust. This sentiment is one of the driving forces behind the creation of national or regional satellite navigation systems, from Europe's Galileo to Russia's GLONASS, each vying for a share of the global positioning market and offering a perceived guarantee of sovereign control. GPS was not the only vulnerability Iran encountered during the US-Israeli attacks. The Israeli army was able to assassinate a number of nuclear scientists and senior commanders in the Iranian security and military forces. The fact that Israel was able to obtain their exact locations raised fears that it was able to infiltrate telecommunications and trace people via their phones. On June 17 as the conflict was still raging, the Iranian authorities urged the Iranian people to stop using the messaging app WhatsApp and delete it from their phones, saying it was gathering user information to send to Israel. Whether this appeal was linked to the assassinations of the senior officials is unclear, but Iranian mistrust of the app run by US-based corporation Meta is not without merit. Cybersecurity experts have long been sceptical about the security of the app. Recently, media reports have revealed that the artificial intelligence software Israel uses to target Palestinians in Gaza is reportedly fed data from social media. Furthermore, shortly after the end of the attacks on Iran, the US House of Representatives moved to ban WhatsApp from official devices. For Iran and other countries around the world, the implications are clear: Western platforms can no longer be trusted as mere conduits for communication; they are now seen as tools in a broader digital intelligence war. Tehran has already been developing its own intranet system, the National Information Network, which gives more control over internet use to state authorities. Moving forward, Iran will likely expand this process and possibly try to emulate China's Great Firewall. By seeking to break with Western-dominated infrastructure, Tehran is definitively aligning itself with a growing sphere of influence that fundamentally challenges Western dominance. This partnership transcends simple transactional exchanges as China offers Iran tools essential for genuine digital and strategic independence. The broader context for this is China's colossal Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While often framed as an infrastructure and trade project, BRI has always been about much more than roads and ports. It is an ambitious blueprint for building an alternative global order. Iran – strategically positioned and a key energy supplier – is becoming an increasingly important partner in this expansive vision. What we are witnessing is the emergence of a new powerful tech bloc – one that inextricably unites digital infrastructure with a shared sense of political defiance. Countries weary of the West's double standards, unilateral sanctions and overwhelming digital hegemony will increasingly find both comfort and significant leverage in Beijing's expanding clout. This accelerating shift heralds the dawn of a new 'tech cold war', a low-temperature confrontation in which nations will increasingly choose their critical infrastructure, from navigation and communications to data flows and financial payment systems, not primarily based on technological superiority or comprehensive global coverage but increasingly on political allegiance and perceived security. As more and more countries follow suit, the Western technological advantage will begin to shrink in real time, resulting in redesigned international power dynamics. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
Al Jazeera
7 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US-EU trade talks: Will the EU chief clinch a deal with Trump?
United States President Donald Trump is scheduled to hold crunch talks with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland after weeks of intense trade talks between the two sides as Brussels aims to ink a deal with Washington to avoid a transatlantic trade war. Von der Leyen, the European Commission president, will meet with the US president at his Turnberry golf club in Scotland on Sunday. European ministers are hoping the meeting will result in a deal to avoid the 30 percent tariffs that Trump has threatened on EU goods. According to people involved in the talks, European negotiators are aiming for tariffs to be set at 15 percent. Trump told reporters on Friday that the bloc 'want[s] to make a deal very badly'. On July 12, Trump threatened to impose the 30 percent tariffs if no agreement could be secured by his deadline, which expires on Friday. That would come on top of the 25 percent tariffs on cars and car parts and 50 percent levies on steel and aluminium already in place. The EU, Washington's biggest trading partner, has been a frequent target of Trump's escalating trade rhetoric with the president accusing the bloc of 'ripping off' the US. In 2024, EU exports to the US totalled 532 billion euros ($603bn). Pharmaceuticals, car parts and industrial chemicals were among the largest exports, according to EU data. Will the Trump-von der Leyen meeting achieve a breakthrough and end the uncertainty in transatlantic trade ties? What are the main differences between the two sides? The US president told reporters at Turnberry on Friday that there are '20 sticking points'. When asked what they were, he said: 'Well, I don't want to tell you what the sticking points are.' At the same time, he described von der Leyen as a 'highly respected woman' and predicted their meeting on Sunday would be 'good', rating the chances of a deal as '50-50'. On the European side, it is understood that a growing number of EU countries are calling for Brussels to push ahead with an already prepared retaliatory tariffs package on 90 billion euros ($109bn) of US goods, including car parts and bourbon, if talks break down. The two sides, which traded 1.6 trillion euros ($1.8 trillion) in goods and services in 2023, have been negotiating since April 9 when Trump paused what he calls his 'reciprocal' tariffs, which he placed on nearly all countries. During that time, the US has been charging a flat 10 percent levy on all EU products as well as 25 percent on cars and 50 percent on steel and aluminium. This month, EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said: 'We have to protect the EU economy, and we need to go for these rebalancing measures.' Still, the bloc is understood to be rife with disagreement over trade policies with the US. While Germany has urged a quick deal to safeguard its industries, other EU members, particularly France, have insisted EU negotiators must not cave in to an asymmetrical deal that favours the US. On Saturday, von der Leyen spokesperson Paula Pinho said: 'Intensive negotiations at technical and political [level] have been ongoing between the EU and US. Leaders will now take stock and consider the scope for a balanced outcome that provides stability and predictability for businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.' What have the US and EU traded with each other? In 2024, the US-EU goods trade reached nearly $1 trillion, making the EU the single largest trading partner of the US. In total, the US bought $235.6bn more in goods than it sold to the 27 countries that make up the EU. On the other hand, the US earned a surplus on services trade with the EU. The US mainly bought pharmaceutical products from the EU as well as mechanical appliances, cars and other nonrailway vehicles – totalling roughly $606bn. The US exported fuel, pharmaceutical products, machinery and aircraft to the EU to the tune of $370bn. Why have they struggled to ink a deal so far? Like all the nations the US runs a trade deficit with, Trump has long accused the EU of swindling his country and is determined that Brussels adopt measures to lower its goods trade surplus with the US. Washington has repeatedly raised concerns over Europe's value-added tax as well as its regulations on food exports and IT services. Trump has argued that these controls act as nontariff trade barriers. Indeed, Sefcovic recently told the Financial Times that he wants to reduce the US-EU trade deficit by buying more US gas, weapons and farm products. And while European leaders want the lowest tariffs possible, they 'also want to be respected as the partners that we are', French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday. On July 14, meanwhile, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels that 'we should prepare to be ready to use all the tools'. He added: 'If you want peace, you have to prepare for war.' Negotiators in Scotland are hoping it doesn't come to that. This month, Oxford Economics, an economic forecasting consultancy, estimated that a 30 percent tariff could push the EU 'to the edge of recession'. Countermeasures from the EU would also hit certain US industries hard. European tariffs could reduce US farmers' and auto workers' incomes, which are key Trump constituencies.
Al Jazeera
a day ago
- Al Jazeera
At least five killed in courthouse attack in Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan
An attack on a courthouse in southeastern Iran's Sistan-Baluchestan province has killed at least five civilians and injured 13, Iranian media report. A mother and child were among those killed on Saturday by gunmen who threw a hand grenade into the building in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchestan, a senior police official told the state news agency IRNA. IRNA said three of the attackers were also killed during the assault, citing the regional headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In a statement posted on its Telegram account, Jaish al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice), a Baloch armed group based in Pakistan but also active in Iran, claimed responsibility for the attack and urged 'all civilians to immediately evacuate the area of clashes for their safety', Iranian media reported. According to Alireza Daliri, Sistan-Baluchestan's deputy police commander, the attackers tried to enter the building disguised as visitors. The Baloch human rights group HAALVSH, quoting witnesses, said several judiciary staff members and security personnel were killed or wounded when the assailants stormed the judges' chambers. IRNA said emergency personnel were at the scene with the wounded evacuated and transported to medical centres. Sistan-Baluchestan, located on the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan, is home to Iran's Sunni Muslim Baloch minority, who have long said they are economically marginalised and politically excluded. Some armed groups said they are fighting for greater rights and autonomy. The Iranian government accuses some of them of having ties to foreign governments and being involved in attacks and cross-border smuggling. Fighting between Iranian security forces and the armed groups is frequent in the province, located about 1,200km (745 miles) southeast of the capital, Tehran. The area has been the scene of recurring clashes between Iranian security forces, including the IRGC, and fighters from the Baloch minority and Sunni groups and drug traffickers. In one of the deadliest incidents, 10 police officers were killed in October in what authorities described as a 'terrorist' attack.
