{"id":198011,"date":"2026-01-24T19:57:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/iran-says-it-is-open-to-talks-with-us-amid-protest-crackdown-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T19:57:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:57:58","slug":"iran-says-it-is-open-to-talks-with-us-amid-protest-crackdown-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/iran-says-it-is-open-to-talks-with-us-amid-protest-crackdown-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran says it is open to talks with US amid protest crackdown – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreign minister says talks possible only on basis of respect after Trump threatened \u2018very strong\u2019 military response
Iran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said Iran is willing to negotiate with the US about its nuclear programme on the basis of respect, but did not comment on claims by Donald Trump<\/a> that Iran was arranging a meeting with the US.
The US president, who has threatened to intervene in Iran, said on Sunday such a meeting was being planned, but added it could be derailed by the crackdown on protesters. He has claimed that Iran reached out and proposed negotiations, as he considers \u201cvery strong\u201d military action<\/a> against the regime.
\u201cThe meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what\u2019s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran<\/a> called, they want to negotiate,\u201d Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night.
It follows direct contact between Araghchi and Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Araghchi was seeking to ward off a potential US attack on Iran, but the status of Iran\u2019s nuclear programme was also discussed.
Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said communication lines with the US remained open but that the messages from the US were \u201coften contradictory\u201d.
Araghchi, briefing foreign diplomats in Tehran with his first remarks after Trump\u2019s comments, did not depart from the official line since the US and Israel bombed its nuclear installations last June that Iran could only hold talks on the basis of respect.
He also claimed the situation in Iran had \u201ccome under total control\u201d as authorities carry out a brutal crackdown against nationwide anti-regime protests, now in their 16th day.
Trump suggested in his comments on Air Force One that Iran was seeking talks because \u201cI think they\u2019re tired of being beat up by the United States. Iran wants to negotiate.\u201d
But asked whether Iran\u2019s leaders had crossed a red line with the crackdown on protests, he replied: \u201cIt looks like it. There seems to be some people killed who weren\u2019t supposed to be killed.\u201d Estimates of the death toll vary from 300 to 3,000, an estimate provided by the National Council for Resistance in Iran.
Pressed about his plans to intervene militarily, Trump said: \u201cWe\u2019re looking at it very seriously, the military\u2019s looking at it. And there\u2019s a couple options.\u201d An administration strategy meeting on Iran will consider the options in the next 24 hours.
Trump also said he planned to speak with Elon Musk about restoring internet in Iran \u2013 where authorities have blacked out services for four days \u2013 using his Starlink service.
Trump\u2019s claims of discussions about talks \u2013 if true \u2013 would suggest a strong private debate inside the Iranian government about the essential need to lift US sanctions through a nuclear deal.
It is widely accepted inside the reformist-led government that without US sanctions being lifted, the country\u2019s economic problems, the spark for the protests, will continue.
But there has been no sign that the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or the hardliner-dominated parliament are prepared to endorse such talks, and the often fantastical explanations for the protests, or denial of their existence, relieves Khamenei of a need for a policy response.
But in a regime show of strength, mobilising its core base through mass demonstrations on Monday, it was significant that the reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, did not address the crowds, but instead that fell to the hardline speaker of the parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who called Trump delusional.
Ellie Geranmayeh, Middle East expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the Iranian government could have hit a ceiling in terms of what it could offer the protesters.
Araghchi described Trump\u2019s support for the protest movement that has roiled the country since late December as \u201cinterference in the internal affairs of countries [\u2026] No government has the right to threaten military intervention under the pretext of protests or human rights\u201d. The regime showed no compunction about showing the body bags of protesters, describing them as terrorists.
On Saturday, Araghchi met the key external mediator on Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi, Oman\u2019s minister of foreign affairs.
However, if messages about negotiations had been sent to Trump, his comments may make it less likely negotiations will occur since there will be a political backlash about talking to a man that Iran believes duplicitously held five rounds of talks with it before bombing its nuclear sites days before the sixth round.
The reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, often accused of weakness, initially acknowledged the legitimacy of the protests and the need for economic reforms to weed out corruption and control the exchange rate, and thereby inflation. A man driven by the need for consensus, he is unlikely to change the thinking of the supreme leader or the security services.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Foreign minister says talks possible only on basis of respect after Trump threatened \u2018very strong\u2019 military responseIran\u2019s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said Iran is willing to negotiate with the US about its nuclear programme on the basis of respect, but did not comment on claims by Donald Trump that Iran was arranging a meeting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-198011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}