US-Iran nuclear talks resume amid sanctions and war fears (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: America's top diplomat Marco Rubio has admitted that talks with Iran will be complicated days before a second round of negotiations over its nuclear program. The US Secretary of State says he believes President Trump's envoys Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner are already on their way to the talks. The pair took part in the first round of negotiations ten days ago in Oman. Tehran has confirmed that the second round will be held on Tuesday in Geneva. The US has sent two warships to the Middle East to put pressure on Iran to reach an agreement. In a news conference in Bratislava, Marco Rubio was asked by a reporter whether the Trump administration would be seeking approval from Congress before any military action against Tehran. Let's hear his response.

[00:00:43] Speaker 2: The president has made clear he prefers diplomacy and an outcome of negotiated settlement. Now, we're dealing with radical Shia clerics. We're dealing with people who make geopolitical decisions on the basis of pure theology and it's a complicated thing. No one's ever been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we're going to try. Steve Woodcoff and Jared Kushner will be traveling. I think they're traveling right now to have important meetings, and we'll see how that turns out. And we'll always comply with the applicable laws of the United States in terms of involving Congress in any decisions. But right now, we're not talking about any of that. We are postured in the region for one simple reason, and that is that we understand that there could be threats to our forces in the region. We've seen them be threatened in the past, and we want to make sure that we have sufficient capacity to defend them if, God forbid, that were to happen.

[00:01:30] Speaker 1: Marco Rubio. Well, meanwhile, Iran's deputy foreign minister has told the BBC that the ball is now in America's court to prove it is ready to negotiate a new nuclear deal. Majid Takht-Ravanchi said Tehran was prepared to consider compromises if the US was willing to discuss lifting sanctions. He's been speaking to our chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, in Tehran. Lise is reporting from Iran on condition that none of her materials used on the BBC's Persian service. These restrictions apply to all international media organizations operating in Iran.

[00:02:04] Speaker 3: We are ready to discuss this and other issues related to our program, provided that they are ready also to talk about the sanctions. Because sanctions, as we call it, illegal sanctions, those sanctions have to be also on the table. One cannot accept the notion that Iran has to do certain things without the other side committing itself to do their share. So it has to be a give and take. That is what compromise is all about.

[00:02:33] Speaker 4: All sanctions? Some.

[00:02:35] Speaker 3: Let's discuss. Let's discuss what sanctions we are talking about.

[00:02:39] Speaker 4: We hear some reports that the U.S. has moved away from its demand that you have zero nuclear enrichment. Have they accepted?

[00:02:47] Speaker 3: You have to pose this question to the United States.

[00:02:50] Speaker 4: But you, let's ask you, that you are discussing now a certain, in the last year it was 3.67%, it will be around that?

[00:02:58] Speaker 3: We are not talking about a specific figure here, but it seems to us that we have already passed that stage, that the issue of zero enrichment is an issue anymore.

[00:03:12] Speaker 4: So they've dropped that demand?

[00:03:14] Speaker 3: As I said, you have to ask this question to them.

[00:03:17] Speaker 4: But as far as you understand, you're at the table, you know what the deal is.

[00:03:20] Speaker 3: As far as we are concerned, zero enrichment is not on the table.

[00:03:24] Speaker 4: Are you optimistic a deal can be reached?

[00:03:27] Speaker 3: It is too early to say whether we will reach an agreement. You know, after one round, one cannot say for sure, bearing in mind the fact that we experienced a war in the middle of negotiations. So one meeting is not enough to assure us that the other side is serious. But the first round was more or less a good one, a good start, and let's see what will happen down the road.

[00:03:52] Speaker 4: President Trump's latest remark says that regime change will be a very good thing to see in Iran. When you hear that, what do you think? Is that really, is that what it's all about?

[00:04:02] Speaker 3: That is a clear example of a mixed signal.

[00:04:04] Speaker 4: But what do they tell you in the private messages?

[00:04:07] Speaker 3: No, we are not hearing these slogans in the private conversation. That I can tell you.

[00:04:14] Speaker 4: He's made it clear that if the diplomacy doesn't succeed, it will be very traumatic for Iran, the war. And that they are, the American military might is building in the region. Would that battle be existential for Iran?

[00:04:31] Speaker 3: It will be traumatic, existential, bad for everybody. It is not as if that Iran will suffer only. Everybody will suffer, particularly those who have initiated this aggression. If we feel, if we feel that this is an existential threat, we will respond accordingly.

[00:04:57] Speaker 4: Do you feel it is an existential threat that's building, a battle for survival?

[00:05:03] Speaker 3: I really don't know. I prefer not to comment on this because it is not wise even to think about such a very dangerous scenario. Because if we come to that point, therefore the whole region will be in mess and we do not want to see that happening.

[00:05:29] Speaker 4: Dr. Ravanchi, as we speak, is it your feeling that Iran is on the brink of a breakthrough in diplomacy or another war?

[00:05:39] Speaker 3: We are hopeful. We are hopeful that we can get the job done through peaceful means, although one cannot be 100% sure. That is why we have made every measure, precautionary measures, to be alert, not to be surprised again, and not to use any chance to defend ourselves.

[00:06:05] Speaker 4: Well, it's Marco Rubio said President Trump prefers a deal, but he said it's hard to get, very hard to get a deal with Iran. He says it's up to you.

[00:06:14] Speaker 3: No, the ball is in America's court. I mean, they have to prove that they want to have a deal with us. And if there is a sincerity, if we see a sincerity on their part, I'm sure that we will be on a road to have an agreement.

[00:06:33] Speaker 1: Well, that's Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister talking to Achieve international correspondent Lise Doucette. Lise joined us a little earlier from Tehran and explained the impact that sanctions are having on Iran.

[00:06:44] Speaker 4: A huge impact. Remember that there have been sanctions on Iran and they just keep putting more and more cents to the United States with almost every year, sometimes every month. You go to the markets here and all you hear from people is how high the prices are. I mean, just think if you were, I mean, all of our viewers live in countries where there's a cost of living crisis, but I would hazard not like this in Iran. The inflation is now soaring at around 60%. They're paying up to 75% more for basic goods, cooking oil, rice, chicken than they did a year ago and the prices are going up and up the real currency is in free fall against the dollar and more and more Iranians are finding it hard to make ends meet but Iranians also are very adamant when they speak to us not just the sanctions it's also years of economic mismanagement and corruption and of course for some Iranians as we saw in the protests last month it's also about the entire system which they want to change.

[00:07:46] Speaker 1: Lise Doucette in Tehran. Well with me is Parham Qobadi who is senior reporter at BBC Persian, part of the BBC World Service. Parham, what are Iranians making of all this as far as you can tell? We've gone from Donald Trump telling protesters help is on the way, warning Iran in the strongest possible terms not to kill a single protester. Weeks later potentially tens of thousands of protesters have been killed and the US is negotiating with Iran about nuclear deal?

[00:08:13] Speaker 5: When you talk to Iranian protesters, both inside and outside the country, they're dismayed, they're confused, and they're disappointed because at first Donald Trump, as you mentioned, said that help is on the way. So they were emboldened, they took to the streets, but after thousands were killed, now they see that, again, U.S. is negotiating with Iran. The fact that the United States is sitting at the negotiating table with the Iranian regime has disappointed them. But furthermore, they are talking mostly about nuclear issues. That's the main concern right now. We don't hear about Iranian protesters. And we don't see a consistency from Trump's administration. Because one day he says that, for example, regime change should be done by Iranian people and Iranians alone. This is what J.D. Vance, he also mentioned it two, three days ago. But again, two days ago, Donald Trump suddenly said that regime change could be the best option in Iran. So we don't see a consistency. However, we see that, for example, Lindsey Graham, who's an important US Republican senator, is more consistent. He is very close. He has a close tie to the son of the former Shah of Iran, the late Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi. He's very close to him. He held a rally with him. He took part in the rally with him. He took part in the Munich security conference yesterday, so they were together. And he seems to be supporting Reza Pahlavi a lot. And he again repeated the same line yesterday to thousands of Iranian protesters in Munich. He said that help is on the way and trust Donald Trump. So we see that from Trump administration. We don't see that consistency, however, from someone like Lindsey Graham, who's closer to Israelis, who's closer to Reza Pahlavi. We see that.

[00:09:54] Speaker 1: And at the same time, though, we are also seeing this continuing U.S. military build-up in the region, another U.S. aircraft carrier arriving. And as Lise said to the Deputy Foreign Minister just there in that interview, mentioning how Donald Trump had mentioned the term regime change a couple of days ago.

[00:10:10] Speaker 5: Exactly. So, one of the things that Iranians, where Iranian officials, especially Abbas Araghchi, Iranian Foreign Minister, was really disappointed and made him really angry was that he was not invited to Munich Security Council because of the violent crackdown of protesters. So he wrote it yesterday on his ex-account. He said that it's sad to see usually serious Munich Security Council turned into a Munich circus. So it shows that how angry they are. And the security conference instead invited Reza Pahlavi. And he called on Iranians to took to the streets around the globe in support of the Iranian protesters. So in Munich there were, according to the police statistics, 250,000 Iranians went there. And in Toronto, over 300,000 people. In Los Angeles, over 350,000 Iranians took to the streets. And this is, they are echoing, they were saying that we are echoing the voice of Iranian protesters because protests in Iran have been cracked down, have been subdued because of the violent crackdown. According to Reitz Group, over 6,000 people were killed, however, thousands and thousands of more deaths are being investigated. And that's, to put it into a context for you, in the three year of war in Ukraine, which is a foreign invasion, over 6,500 civilians were killed. However, that number, only to confirm this, the verified death, is over 6,500, mostly in two nights, committed by the regime itself, killing its own people. In two nights.

[00:11:43] Speaker 1: And you mentioned, I mean, these vast numbers of Iranians coming out on the streets of cities all over the world. And contrasting that to the situation in Iran itself, people just simply too scared to come out and protest anymore.

[00:11:56] Speaker 5: It is true. During the anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution, which was like a few nights ago, so mosques were playing loud Allahu Akbar. However, in the backdrop of that, in the background, you could hear people from their windows shouting death to the dictator. So the anger is there, The anger is there, especially after the massacre of Iranian protesters, but it is too risky for them to come to the streets. And that crackdown, that violent crackdown, was an important shift in Iranian policy because that showed that Iranian protesters alone, with bare hands, cannot face a regime that is armed to its death and be able to face those forces.

[00:12:37] Speaker 1: Parham, thank you very much. Thanks for having me. Parham Khabbadi, BBC Persian.