U.S.–Iran Talks Progress as Strike Fears Grow (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Iran's top security official and President Trump have both said their countries are negotiating as concern continues that the U.S. could launch a military attack on Iran. Mr. Trump said Tehran was talking seriously to Washington. It comes as a U.S. military fleet is heading towards Iran after Mr. Trump threatened to intervene to stop the regime's deadly crackdown on anti-government protesters. Several explosions across Iran on Saturday, blamed by the authorities on gas leaks, caused widespread anxiety. Iran is expected to begin a two-day live-fire naval exercise on Sunday in the Straits of Hamas. Well, let's speak to our correspondent, Barbara Plett-Usher, who's in Doha for us. And, Barbara, I mean, how are diplomatic talks going at the moment, considering this looming prospect of military action?

[00:00:56] Speaker 2: Well, it seems they are happening at some level, and there has been some sort of progress based that they're starting from zero, I suppose. And this is according to the public statements made on both sides. What the Iranians actually said was that there was progress towards a framework for negotiations, and this would be negotiations over Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. But the content... of that, we know, is disputed, because the Americans are making maximalist demands, including they want Iran to end its nuclear program, so end uranium enrichment. And the Iranians continue to say, well, we're not planning to build a bomb, and we have the right for peaceful uranium enrichment. And, crucially, the Americans are also demanding that Iran limit its ballistic missile program. And there, Iran has been very clear that that's a red line, that's not going to happen, that's very crucial for Iran's defense. So, there's some way to go yet before we know whether there can be... a deal possible. But at least in public statements, it sounds like there has been some kind of movement.

[00:02:03] Speaker 1: So, a lot of this is still being worked out. How dangerous would it be for Washington to launch some kind of missile attack, and therefore the response then from Iran?

[00:02:16] Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of potential for some quite dangerous scenarios, and nobody quite knows what the Americans would actually be doing. Because they have different options, and nobody knows what the result would be. Now, the Iranians have been quite vocal about saying they would respond swiftly, and they would respond quite substantially. So, it depends on what the Americans would do. They could strike military targets, so they could try to hit nuclear program sites, although it's unclear what that would be, because they did bomb three of the major sites in June, and the Iranians haven't... There's no evidence. The Iranians tried to reconstitute the program since then. They could strike the ballistic missile program. It's believed that's what Israel wants to happen, because those missiles are also pointed at Israel. It could strike leadership targets, so it could go after the Iran Revolutionary Guard targets. This is the group that has been accused of being behind the protest crackdown, although it's not clear whether that would really change anything. It could go after leadership targets. That would be regime change. Things get very unclear, because nobody knows what would happen if this regime would fall, or whether it would be replaced by, let's say, military leaders, or who would replace it. And in the worst-case scenario, if there was a state collapse, if there was fragmentation, that would trigger greater instability in the region. That's what America's regional allies are really afraid of. It could actually, possibly also, the Americans take the Venezuela playbook in terms of using all this firepower, the naval forces that they have amassed in the region to blockade Iran's oil exports, especially the sanctions-busting ships, and just try to grind the regime down that way. So there are various options, and we don't really know what's going to happen, because it's still being considered. And frankly, we're not quite sure what the goal is here either, whether President Trump wants to weaken Iran militarily, or whether he does actually want to topple the regime.

[00:04:22] Speaker 1: Thank you for walking us through all of that. That's Barbara Plett-Usher, our correspondent in Doha.