- Iran warns of targeting US military bases in the Middle East if a conflict arises.
- President Donald Trump expresses "less confidence" about reaching a new nuclear deal with Iran.
- Iran and the US have held five rounds of talks since April to negotiate a new nuclear agreement.
Tehran and Washington have already held five rounds of talks since April to negotiate a new nuclear agreement to replace the 2015 accord that Trump withdrew from during his first term in 2018.
Since Trump returned to office in January, he has revived his "maximum pressure" campaign on Tehran. He supports nuclear diplomacy but warns he will take military action if it fails.
"All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation, we will target all of them in the host countries," Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to US threats of military action if the talks fail.
"God willing, things won’t reach that point, and the talks will succeed," the minister said, adding that the US side "will suffer more losses" if it came to conflict.
The United States operates multiple bases in the Middle East, with its largest base located in Qatar.
Iran and the United States have recently engaged in a diplomatic standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment, with Tehran asserting it as a "non-negotiable" right and Washington declaring it a "red line."
During a Gulf tour last month, Trump expressed optimism about the talks, stating that Washington was "getting close" to securing a deal.
In an interview published on Wednesday, Trump said he felt "less confident" that the United States and Iran could reach a deal, responding to a question about whether he believed he could prevent Tehran from enriching uranium.
A shame:
Iran currently enriches uranium to 60%, exceeding the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal and approaching, though not yet reaching, the 90% level required for a nuclear warhead.The United States and its ally Israel, along with other Western countries, have long accused Iran of trying to acquire atomic weapons, while Tehran maintains that its nuclear program serves only peaceful purposes.
Last week, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei emphasized that enrichment is "key" to Iran’s nuclear program and declared that Washington "cannot have a say" in the matter.
During the interview with the New York Post’s podcast "Pod Force One," recorded on Monday, Trump said he was losing hope of reaching a deal.
"I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more less confident about it. They seem to be delaying and I think that’s a shame. I am less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago," he said.
"Something happened to them, but I am much less confident of a deal being made... Maybe they don’t wanna make a deal, what can I say? And maybe they do. There is nothing final."
Trump reaffirmed that Washington would not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons, stating, "It would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying."
On May 31, following the fifth round of talks, Iran announced it had received key "elements" of a U.S. proposal for a nuclear deal. Iranian negotiator Araghchi later stated that the proposal's text contained "ambiguities."
Iran announced it would present a counter-proposal to Washington’s latest draft, criticizing it for not providing sufficient relief from sanctions — a key demand for Tehran, which has struggled under their impact for years.
On Monday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), began a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, set to continue until Friday, to address Iran’s atomic activities and other matters.
The IAEA issued a report ahead of the meeting, criticizing Tehran for providing "less than satisfactory" cooperation, especially in failing to explain past instances where nuclear material was discovered at undeclared sites.
Iran criticized the IAEA report as unbalanced and accused the agency of relying on "forged documents" supplied by its arch-foe, Israel.
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