Iran FM says ready to ‘consider’ diplomacy ‘once the aggression is stopped’

Tehran is ready to “consider diplomacy” again only once Israel’s “aggression is stopped,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said following talks with his European counterparts on Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again and once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed... We support the continuation of discussion with” Britain, France, Germany and the European Union “and express our readiness to meet again in the near future,” Araghchi told reporters following the talks at a Geneva hotel.

Meanwhile, European powers urged Iran to hold nuclear talks “without awaiting” an end to Israeli airstrikes on the Islamic Republic, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

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“We invited the Iranian minister to consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes, which we also hope for,” he said after he and his British, German and EU counterparts held talks with Araghchi in Geneva.

“It is illusory and dangerous to want to impose a regime change from the outside. It is up to the people to decide their own destiny,” Barrot added, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not rule out killing supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

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