Donald Trump proposes generous incentives to bring Iran back to negotiating table. Details here

The Trump administration is engaging in backdoor talks with Iranian leaders, offering to lift sanctions and rebuild its nuclear facilities, to bring Tehran to the negotiation table, said a report. All this when Iran says it has no plans for restarting negotiations with the US. 

The talks are being led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and involve partners in Gulf countries, primarily Qatar. The hours-long meetings have been going on even before US military strikes against Iran, two sources familiar with the meeting told CNN.

The report added that Trump is offering to invest $20 to $30 billion in a civilian non-enrichment nuclear programme in Iran and easing sanctions. The administration has also proposed freeing up billions of dollars in restricted Iranian funds.

However, the proposals will have one non-negotiable element: zero Iranian enrichment of Uranium.  

As for the investment in non-enrichment nuclear programmes, the amount would be footed by Gulf countries, according to a Trump administration official, who said the US will not commit to repairing the facilities, including Fordow. "There are a lot of ideas being thrown around by different people and a lot of them are trying to be creative," one of the sources familiar with the discussions told CNN. 

"I think it is entirely uncertain what will happen here," another source added. 

However, both the Trump administration and the Iranian government are holding onto the public stance that there was no need for a nuclear agreement. "We may sign an agreement, I don’t know," Trump said during the NATO Summit. "They had a war, they fought, now they’re going back to their world. I don’t care if I have an agreement or not."

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi too shut down reports that Tehran would engage in talks with the US. "I would like to state clearly that no agreement, arrangement or conversation has been made to start new negotiations," he said on state television. "No plan has been set yet to start negotiations."

Despite that, the backdoor talks hint that the Trump administration believes Iran would accede to the US conditions and drop its bid to create a nuclear weapon. Speculations are rife that a certain section of Iranian leadership, led by President Masoud Pezeshkian is in favour of negotiations with the US, and is in the process of sidelining Supreme Leader  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Middle East