Trump says the U.S. and Iran will hold ‘direct’ nuclear talks

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States would engage in “direct” negotiations with Iran next Saturday in a last-ditch effort to rein in the country’s nuclear program, saying Tehran would be “in great danger” if it failed to reach an accord.

If direct talks take place, they would be the first official face-to-face negotiations between the two countries since Trump abandoned the Obama-era nuclear accord seven years ago. But they would come at a perilous moment, as Iran has lost the air defenses around its key nuclear sites because of precise Israeli strikes last October. And Iran can no longer rely on its proxy forces in the Middle East — Hamas, Hezbollah and the now-ousted Assad government in Syria — to threaten Israel with retaliation.

On the order of its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has refused to sit down with U.S. officials in direct nuclear negotiations since Trump pulled out of the last accord. So any face-to-face talks would in themselves represent great progress, though Iran is almost certain to resist dismantling its entire nuclear infrastructure, which has given it a “threshold” capability to make the fuel for a bomb in a matter of weeks — and perhaps a full weapon in months.

Sitting beside Trump on Monday during a visit to the United States, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that any resulting deal must follow what he called the “Libya model,” meaning that Iran would have to dismantle and ship out of the country its entire nuclear infrastructure. But much of Libya’s nuclear enrichment equipment had never been uncrated before it was turned over to the United States in 2003; Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has been operating for decades, and is spread around the country, much of it deep underground.

Three Iranian officials with knowledge of talks with the United States said that Trump’s description of the impending talks was not entirely accurate. They said Iran’s understanding of discussions in Oman was that they would begin with indirect talks, where each country’s negotiators would sit in separate rooms and Omani diplomats would carry messages back and forth, the officials said.

However, the Iranian officials said that Tehran would be open to direct talks with the United States if the indirect negotiations went well.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.