{"id":1355,"date":"2025-06-20T11:37:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T11:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/06\/20\/iran-european-officials-to-hold-first-meeting-since-israel-conflict-began\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T11:37:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T11:37:21","slug":"iran-european-officials-to-hold-first-meeting-since-israel-conflict-began","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/06\/20\/iran-european-officials-to-hold-first-meeting-since-israel-conflict-began\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran, European officials to hold first meeting since Israel conflict began"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Iran will hold talks with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday in an attempt to prevent an escalation in its conflict with Israel, after United States President Donald Trump said he would decide within two weeks whether to join the assault on Tehran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will meet with the European delegation in Geneva on Friday,\u201d Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a statement, carried by state news agency IRNA.<\/p>\n

European diplomats confirmed the planned talks in Switzerland, set to involve French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.<\/p>\n

Kallas and the ministers from the three European countries \u2013 known as the E3 \u2013 spoke to Araghchi earlier this week and discussed the need to return to the negotiating table and avoid further escalation. At Iran\u2019s suggestion, the two sides agreed to meet face-to-face.<\/p>\n

\u2018Window\u2019 for diplomacy<\/h2>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron said European nations were planning to suggest a negotiated solution to end the conflict<\/a>. On Wednesday, he asked his foreign minister to draw up an initiative with \u201cclose partners\u201d to that end.<\/p>\n

Speaking in Paris after talks on the crisis with the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Thursday, Barrot said the three nations \u201cstand ready to bring our competence and experience on this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are ready to take part in negotiations aimed at obtaining from Iran a lasting rollback of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Lammy was scheduled to travel to Switzerland following his visit to Washington, DC, where he met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon \u2026 A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,\u201d Lammy said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Kallas, in coordination with European countries, has insisted that diplomacy remains the best path towards ensuring that Iran does not develop a nuclear bomb.<\/p>\n

Israel has repeatedly said its series of strikes is a preemptive move to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Iran denies it is building nuclear weapons and insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it has found no evidence<\/a> that Iran was building such weapons.<\/p>\n

Iran \u2018not closing doors of diplomacy\u2019<\/h2>\n

The meeting follows comments from Trump on Thursday that there could be new talks in the \u201cnear future\u201d. The US and Iran held five rounds of negotiations over Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme over recent weeks, with a sixth round of talks cancelled after Israel launched attacks on Iran last week.<\/p>\n

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera\u2019s Tohid Asadi said Iranian authorities appear to be trying to send a message that they will not resume negotiations with the US over its nuclear programme while Israel continues its attacks, but they would not close the door on diplomacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranians are saying that they\u2019re not going to negotiate while Israeli strikes continue. And that they\u2019re going to strike back and continue with their retaliatory measures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Tehran is \u201cstill trying to send the message that they are not closing the possibility and doors of diplomacy\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from Geneva, said the European countries were trying to get the US and Iran \u201cback from the brink\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a massive diplomatic push to try to prevent this conflict from really escalating even further and engulfing the region potentially,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Trump weighs intervention<\/h2>\n

The ramping up of diplomatic efforts comes as Trump said he is weighing military action against Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

Trump said on Thursday he would make up his mind within two weeks on whether Washington will get directly involved militarily in the conflict, given the \u201csubstantial chance\u201d for renewed diplomatic negotiations over Tehran\u2019s nuclear programme.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s well-defended Fordow uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain, is widely considered to be out of reach of all but the US\u2019s so-called \u201cbunker buster\u201d bombs.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he trusted that Trump would \u201cdo what\u2019s best for America\u201d. \u201cI can tell you that they\u2019re already helping a lot,\u201d he told reporters in Beersheba.<\/p>\n

The talks will be held in Geneva, where an initial accord between Iran and world powers to curb its nuclear programme in return for lifting sanctions was struck in 2013, before a comprehensive deal in 2015.<\/p>\n

Trump left the\u00a0Iran nuclear deal<\/a> during his first term as president in 2018, defying last-ditch diplomatic efforts by his European allies to convince him otherwise.<\/p>\n

Negotiations between Iran and the US had been taking place when Israel launched what it called Operation Rising Lion against Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities and ballistic capabilities on June 12.<\/p>\n

The conflict erupted with a surprise wave of Israeli attacks targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites and killing top generals and nuclear scientists.<\/p>\n

At least 639 people, including 263 civilians, have been killed in Iran and more than 1,300 wounded since Israel launched a surprise wave of air raids against Iran a week ago, according to the US-based rights group Human Rights Activists.<\/p>\n

In Israel, at least 24 people have been killed and hundreds of others wounded in Iranian attacks, according to Israeli health authorities.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran will hold talks with the United Kingdom, France and Germany in Geneva on Friday in an attempt to prevent an escalation in its conflict with Israel, after United States President Donald Trump said he would decide within two weeks whether to join the assault on Tehran. \u201cWe will meet with the European delegation in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}