Iran says it’s ready to negotiate nuclear deal as Trump weighs military action

TEHRAN — Iran is ready to negotiate with the United States and is hopeful that a deal can be reached if the goal is to achieve a country without nuclear weapons, two government officials of the Islamic Republic told NBC News on Monday.

Their comments come as Turkey attempts to arrange a meeting between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials in a bid to ease the threat of U.S. military action, the Iranian government-linked Nour news agency reported.

However, a White House official told NBC News that Witkoff was scheduled to travel to Israel on Tuesday and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials. Separately, an Israeli official said he would focus on Iran and Gaza, without giving further details.

Tensions escalated after the USS Abraham Lincoln and several U.S. guided-missile destroyers traveled to the Middle East within striking range of Iran.

It’s unclear whether President Donald Trump will decide to use force, but he said “we’ll find out” when asked Sunday whether Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was correct in predicting that a U.S. attack on the country would spark a regional war.

Asked by a reporter about the remarks, Trump said he hoped a deal could be reached, while warning that the United States had “the biggest and most powerful ships in the world” there.

“We’re not making a deal, so we’ll find out whether he was right or not,” said Trump, who withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, during his first presidential term. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the deal offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. But Trump, a longtime critic of the deal, said the United States had given up too much for not enough.

Khamenei told crowds at his Tehran compound earlier Sunday that “the Americans must be aware that if they fight a war this time, it will be a regional war.” He said the United States was interested in Iran’s oil, natural gas and other mineral resources, adding that it wanted to “take over this country, just like it controlled it before.”

Meanwhile, the mood is tense on the streets of Tehran after recent protests that rocked the capital as well as other cities across the country.

At the city’s crossroads, posted on motorcycles, members of the Basij-e Mostaz’afin or Organization for the Mobilization of the Oppressed, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Paramilitary volunteers, fiercely loyal to the Islamic Republic, have played a leading role in suppressing dissent for more than two decades.

New billboards showing pro-government propaganda have also emerged in Tehran. One of them, in Palestine Square, shows American and Israeli coffins with a warning for their soldiers.

While some stores are open, many remain closed, still reeling from the collapse of the rial, which has led to a deepening economic crisis and an annual inflation rate of around 40%. Years of economic mismanagement and Western sanctions aimed at cutting off funding for Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the country’s war with Israel last year, have been blamed for the financial difficulties faced by many Iranians.

Experts have blamed soaring prices for food and other basic goods for the protests, which in turn sparked a violent crackdown by the regime.

At least 6,842 people were killed across the country during protests that began in late December and ended around mid-January, according to the US news agency Human Rights Activists News Agency, which says it verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that its data is subject to “multiple internal controls.” The agency fears the death toll could be even higher.

As of January 21, the Iranian government put the death toll at a much lower figure of 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and members of the security forces and calling the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has underreported or not reported deaths from unrest. NBC News was unable to independently assess the death toll.

Iran said Monday it had summoned all European Union ambassadors to the country to protest the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s listing as a terrorist group.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters that ambassadors began being summoned on Sunday and that process also continued on Monday.

“A series of actions have been considered, various options are being prepared and have been sent to the relevant decision-making bodies,” Baghaei said. “We believe that in the coming days a decision will be made regarding reciprocal action by the Islamic Republic of Iran in the face of the EU’s illegal, unreasonable and very wrong decision. »