A lot is at stake in Geneva as the United States seeks to hold talks with Iran and Russia. The talks appear to be complex and have many hurdles. Meanwhile, the US continues to concentrate firepower in the Middle East.
US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner departed for Geneva overnight between Monday and Tuesday. Meanwhile, a Russian delegation also had to fly a circuitous route to arrive at the talks.
Iranian state media IRNA conducted an exclusive interview with Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, just prior to the Iranian delegation leaving for Geneva.
“Tehran has dispatched a comprehensive delegation to Geneva for the second round of negotiations, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says, stressing that Iran sees no benefit in prolonging the talks,” IRNA noted. “In this round of negotiations, we will attend with a full team: a political, legal, economic, and technical team,” Baghaei was quoted as saying.
“From our side, all the experts and representatives necessary to comment on and decide about the various dimensions of an understanding are present,” he said.
CNN noted on Tuesday that “US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over the weekend that President Donald Trump prefers diplomacy in dealing with Iran and that the administration is focused on negotiations.”
Apparently, the talks with Iran will take place first, followed by trilateral talks with the Russians and Ukrainians.
“US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to meet with Iranian officials today in Geneva,” CNN said.
Geneva talks mark a critical moment for US-Iran diplomacy
Al-Ain media in the UAE said that “hopes [were] pinned on the magic of nature to break through politics.” This is how the Gulf and the Middle East are viewing the talks. Countries in the region hope that war can be avoided.
Trump has said he hopes for an agreement with Kyiv and Moscow. In the past year, the White House has sought to get a deal and has indicated that it will wait for both sides to come to the table.
“Ukraine and Russia had described two previous rounds of talks in the United Arab Emirates as fruitful,” Al-Ain said. There are many issues involved in the Russia-Ukraine talks, including the Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and Western security guarantees for Ukraine. The talks come after the Munich Security Conference, where many countries discussed the new world order. They also come as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in Hungary this week. Russia’s delegation is headed by historian and culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, reports said.
Al-Ain also noted that the “United States and Iran are holding a second round of talks in Geneva on Tuesday, which began in February amid threats of US military action against Iran, while Tehran spoke of a ‘more realistic’ stance from Washington regarding its nuclear program.”
The same report says that “as Washington bolsters its military presence in the Middle East, Tehran has threatened an immediate response to any attack. The Revolutionary Guard began military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.”
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister has said that Iran wants US and international sanctions lifted. Iran wants “results-based diplomacy to ensure the interests and rights of the Iranian people and peace and stability in the region.” Al-Ain notes that “Iran insists that the talks be limited to the nuclear file, which Western countries suspect is aimed at developing a nuclear weapon, something Tehran consistently denies.”
Baghaei has “emphasized that Tehran seeks to conclude the negotiations within the shortest possible timeframe and has therefore ensured the presence of all required specialists in Geneva,” according to his talks with IRNA. “We are negotiating under conditions of complete suspicion and mistrust. We have previous experience, and we are not permitted under any circumstances to [allow this] experience, even for a moment, out of our sight,” he said.
Meanwhile, other things are happening. Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani has made recent trips to Muscat and Doha. Iran says that the “12-Day War imposed by Israel and the US on Iran significantly altered certain aspects of the situation.” Baghaei said that “the attack on Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities was a criminal act that had its own specific consequences. Therefore, we are now facing new conditions in this new round, but the subject is the same; that is, the subject remains nuclear.”
Iran is also saying that the US is sending “completely contradictory signals and messages, none of which indicate seriousness.”
Even as Tehran thinks that the US is moving the goalposts, it also hopes that the White House is being more realistic.
“For us, time is important,” Baghaei said. “Our people are under pressure from unjust sanctions, and reason and logic dictate that we should be able to lift these sanctions as soon as possible. Therefore, there is no benefit in prolonging the negotiations. As I said, we enter any diplomatic process with a result-oriented approach.”