Iran's top diplomat says talks with US 'complicated' by American strike on nuclear sites

Dubai | Iran's top diplomat said the possibility of new negotiations with the United States on his country's nuclear programme has been “complicated” by the American attack on three of the sites, which he conceded caused “serious damage."

The US was one of the parties to the 2015 nuclear deal in which Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment programme in exchange for sanctions relief and other benefits.

That deal unravelled after US President Donald Trump pulled the US out unilaterally during his first term. Trump has suggested he is interested in new talks with Iran, and said that the two sides would meet next week.

In an interview on Iranian state television broadcast late Thursday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left open the possibility that his country would again enter talks on its nuclear programme, but suggested it would not be anytime soon.

“No agreement has been made for resuming the negotiations,” he said. “No time has been set, no promise has been made, and we haven't even talked about restarting the talks.” The American decision to intervene militarily “made it more complicated and more difficult” for talks on Iran's nuclear programme, Araghchi said.

Israel attacked Iran on June 13, targeting its nuclear sites, defence systems, high-ranking military officials and atomic scientists in relentless attacks.

In 12 days of strikes, Israel said it killed some 30 Iranian commanders and hit eight nuclear-related facilities and more than 720 military infrastructure sites. More than 1,000 people were killed, including at least 417 civilians, according to the Washington-based Human Rights Activists group.

Iran fired more than 550 ballistic missiles at Israel, most of which were intercepted but those that got through caused damage in many areas and killed 28 people.

The US stepped in on Sunday to hit Iran's three most important strikes with a wave of cruise missiles and bunker-buster bombs dropped by B-2 bombers, designed to penetrate deep into the ground to damage the heavily-fortified targets. Iran, in retaliation, fired missiles at a US base in Qatar on Monday but caused no known casualties.

Trump said the American attacks “completely and fully obliterated” Iran's nuclear programme, though Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday accused the US president of exaggerating the damage, saying the strikes did not “achieve anything significant.” There has been speculation that Iran moved much of its highly-enriched uranium before the strikes, something that it told the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, that it planned to do.

Even if that turns out to be true, IAEA Director Rafael Grossi told Radio France International that the damage done to the Fordo site, which was built into a mountain, “is very, very, very considerable.” Among other things, he said, centrifuges are “quite precise machines” and it's “not possible” that the concussion from multiple 30,000-pound bombs would not have caused “important physical damage.” “These centrifuges are no longer operational,” he said.

Araghchi himself acknowledged that “the level of damage is high, and it's serious damage.” He added that Iran had not yet decided upon whether to allow IAEA inspectors in to assess the damage, but that they would be kept out “for the time being.”