Iran will no longer engage in nuclear talks with the United States, state media reported. The decision came after Israel, one of the U.S.’s top allies, launched an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Israel launched a series of strikes against Iran directed at disabling its nuclear program and ballistic missile capabilities and decapitating its military leadership early Thursday morning. The attack took out top Iranian leaders, including Gen. Hossein Salami, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and multiple nuclear scientists.
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In a statement responding to the Israeli attack, President Donald Trump pressed Iran to make a deal with the U.S. “before there is nothing left.”
However, Iran has disregarded the call for de-escalation and launched roughly 100 retaliatory strikes, saying it plans to suspend negotiations with the Trump administration indefinitely, according to Oman News Agency and Iranian state media.
“The Zionist enemy carried out this attack with the help of the United States and targeted residential areas,” a spokesperson for the Iranian armed forces told Ahram Online Friday. “Israel will pay a heavy price and should expect a strong response from us. That response will definitely come.”
The apparent setback in nuclear talks came after the Trump administration said Thursday evening that it still hoped to send the special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, to Oman this weekend for a sixth round of nuclear talks with Iran.
For years, U.S. officials have raised fears about Iran’s nuclear program, leading past presidents to attempt negotiations, issue ominous warnings, and even make controversial deals with the regime in an effort to decapacitate such threats, as the Obama administration did.
When Hamas launched an attack on Israel and killed roughly 1,200 civilians during the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre, concerns about Iran again rose to the forefront due to the country’s deep connections to the terrorist group.
Although some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have pressed the Trump administration to directly bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities and take out terrorists in the country, as Israel chose to do, the president resisted pressure to do so, opting instead to mount a diplomatic pressure campaign designed to avert warfare.
Detailed in a national security memorandum released in February, the White House has followed a policy of “imposing maximum pressure” on Iran as part of the Trump administration’s broader strategy to isolate Iran politically and economically to keep it from building a nuclear weapon.
Trump said in the early spring that he was running “a campaign of pressure” to negotiate a new deal. He “really wants peace” but Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, Trump said. The president also sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in March saying: “I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”
“If we could solve this problem without warfare,” Trump said,” It would be a tremendous thing.”
In April, the White House revealed Iran had agreed to embark on nuclear negotiations with the U.S.
At the time, Trump gave Iran 60 days to reach a deal on its nuclear program, warning of “more dire consequences” if an agreement was not reached.
The 60-day mark came and passed without a deal from Iran on June 12, the day before Israel launched strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities.
On Friday morning, Trump suggested that Iran might be willing to give negotiations a second chance to avoid an all-out war with Israel.
“Two months ago I gave Iran a 60-day ultimatum to ‘make a deal,” he said in a post to Truth Social. They should have done it! Today is day 61. I told them what to do, but they just couldn’t get there. Now they have, perhaps, a second chance!”
The primary factor stalling an agreement is Iran’s refusal to agree to stop its domestic uranium enrichment program, which can be used to generate nuclear energy to build a bomb.
On Thursday, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog passed a resolution declaring Iran in noncompliance with its nuclear safeguards obligations for the first time in two decades. The IAEA Board of Governors concluded that Iran’s uranium enrichment has reached 60% purity, steps away from the weapons-grade purity level of 90%.
“A country enriching at 60% is a very serious thing. Only countries making bombs are reaching this level,” IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in 2021.
An Israeli military official told the BBC that Iran had enough nuclear material to create nuclear bombs “within days”.
That belief spurred Israel’s military operation against Iran on Friday morning, which could crush the Trump administration’s goal of sealing an agreement with the Ayatollah.
IRAN WARNS OF ‘BITTER, PAINFUL FATE’ BEFORE LAUNCHING RETALIATORY STRIKE AGAINST ISRAEL
“Operation Rising Lion,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, seeks to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.”
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said during televised remarks that intelligence officials had uncovered an Iranian “plan to destroy Israel that has taken shape in recent years” saying the Ayatollah’s regime is “racing towards a nuclear bomb.”