Iran’s top diplomat on Tuesday warned US President Donald Trump to put aside a military option ahead of nuclear talks, saying that Tehran will never accept “coercion.”
In an opinion piece published in The Washington Post, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi repeated earlier statements to Iranian state media that a deal would be possible if the United States shows goodwill.
But ahead of the weekend talks in Oman, Araghchi also warned against a military strike, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday would be “inevitable” if US-Iran talks drag on.
“To move forward today, we first need to agree that there can be no ‘military option,’ let alone a ‘military solution,'” Araghchi wrote.
“The proud Iranian nation, whose strength my government relies on for real deterrence, will never accept coercion and imposition,” he wrote.
Pointing to the US leader’s push to end the Ukraine conflict, Araghchi said: “We cannot imagine President Trump wanting to become another US president mired in a catastrophic war in the Middle East – a conflict that would quickly extend across the region and cost exponentially more than the trillions of taxpayer dollars that his predecessors burned in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
