Iran's President Seeks US Negotiations 02/03 06:02

   Iran's president said Tuesday he instructed the country's foreign minister 
to "pursue fair and equitable negotiations" with the United States, the first 
clear sign from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate as tensions remain high 
with Washington after the Mideast country's bloody crackdown on nationwide 
protests last month.

   DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran's president said Tuesday he 
instructed the country's foreign minister to "pursue fair and equitable 
negotiations" with the United States, the first clear sign from Tehran it wants 
to try to negotiate as tensions remain high with Washington after the Mideast 
country's bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month.

   The announcement marked a major turn for reformist President Masoud 
Pezeshkian, who broadly had warned Iranians for weeks that the turmoil in his 
country had gone beyond his control. It also signals that the president 
received support from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for talks 
that the 86-year-old cleric previously had dismissed.

   Turkey had been working behind the scenes to make the talks happen there 
later this week as U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region. 
Foreign ministers from Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab 
Emirates have also been invited to attend the talks, if they happen, according 
to a regional official who spoke on condition of anonymity as they did not have 
permission to speak to journalists.

   But whether Iran and the U.S. can reach an agreement remains to be seen, 
particularly as President Donald Trump now has included Iran's nuclear program 
in a list of demands from Tehran in any talks. Trump ordered the bombing of 
three Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran 
in June.

   Iran's president signals talks are possible

   Writing on X, Pezeshkian said in English and Farsi that the decision came 
after "requests from friendly governments in the region to respond to the 
proposal by the President of the United States for negotiations."

   "I have instructed my Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided that a suitable 
environment exists -- one free from threats and unreasonable expectations -- to 
pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, 
prudence, and expediency," he said.

   The U.S. has yet to acknowledge the talks will take place. A semiofficial 
news agency in Iran on Monday reported -- then later deleted without 
explanation -- that Pezeshkian had issued such an order to Foreign Minister 
Abbas Araghchi, who held multiple rounds of talks with Witkoff before the 
12-day war.

   Khamenei adviser speaks on the nuclear issue

   Late Monday, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen, which is 
politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, 
aired an interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top Khamenei adviser on security.

   Shamkhani, who now sits on the country's Supreme National Security Council 
and who in the 1980s led Iran's navy, wore a naval uniform as he spoke.

   He suggested if the talks happened, they would be indirect at the beginning, 
then moving to direct talks if a deal appeared to be attainable. Direct talks 
with the U.S. long have been a highly charged political issue within Iran's 
theocracy, with reformists like Pezeshkian pushing for them and hard-liners 
dismissing them.

   The talks would solely focus on nuclear issues, he added.

   Asked about whether Russia could take Iran's enriched uranium like it did in 
Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Shamkhani dismissed the idea, 
saying there was "no reason" to do so. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on 
Monday said Russia had "long offered these services as a possible option that 
would alleviate certain irritants for a number of countries."

   "Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, will not seek a nuclear weapon and will 
never stockpile nuclear weapons, but the other side must pay a price in return 
for this," he said.

   Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step 
away from weapons-grade levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency had said 
Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that wasn't 
armed with the bomb.

   Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in 
the June war.

   "The quantity of enriched uranium remains unknown, because part of the 
stockpile is under rubble, and there is no initiative yet to extract it, as it 
is extremely dangerous," Shamkhani said.

   Witkoff traveling to Israel

   Witkoff is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other 
Israeli security officials on Tuesday, according to a White House official who 
was not authorized to comment publicly about the talks and spoke on condition 
of anonymity.

   While in Israel, Witkoff will meet with the head of the Mossad intelligence 
service and the Israeli military's chief of staff, according to another 
official who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of 
anonymity.

   Israel is expected to ask that any agreement with Iran include removing 
enriched uranium from the country, stopping the enrichment of uranium, limiting 
the creation of ballistic missiles and ending support for Tehran's proxies.

   However, Shakhani in his interview rejected giving up uranium enrichment -- 
a major obstacle in earlier talks with the U.S. In November, Araghchi said Iran 
was doing no enrichment in the country because of the U.S. bombing of the 
nuclear sites.

   Witkoff later will travel to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, later in the week 
for Russia-Ukraine talks, the official said.

   "We have talks going on with Iran, we'll see how it all works out," Trump 
told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. Asked what his threshold was for 
military action against Iran, he declined to elaborate.

   "I'd like to see a deal negotiated," Trump said. "Right now, we're talking 
to them, we're talking to Iran, and if we could work something out, that'd be 
great. And if we can't, probably bad things would happen."

   Mike Pompeo, a hard-liner on Iran who served as CIA director and secretary 
of state in Trump's first term, said it was "unimaginable that there can be a 
deal."

   "I think they may come away with some set of understandings," Pompeo said at 
Dubai's World Governments Summit. "But to think that there's a long-term 
solution that actually provides stability and peace to this region while the 
ayatollah is still in power is something I pray for but find unimaginable."

   Also Tuesday, a ship transiting through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow 
mouth of the Persian Gulf, reported being hailed on the radio "by numerous 
small armed vessels," the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade 
Operations center said.

   There was no identifying information on the vessel, which continued into the 
Persian Gulf. The position of the incident appeared to be in Iranian 
territorial waters, where officials had warned of a naval drill by the 
paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days.