Erdogan tells Iran’s FM resuming talks only way to solve nuclear dispute
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday told Iran’s foreign minister that resuming Iranian-U.S. talks on Tehran’s nuclear programme was the only way to achieve a solution to their dispute and the conflict with “Israel”, the Turkish Presidency said.
Erdogan met Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi on the sidelines of an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Istanbul. In a statement, his office noted that Erdogan said “Israel” had to be stopped immediately.
Erdogan said Turkey was ready to play a facilitator role to help resume the nuclear talks, adding, “Steps should be taken as soon as possible to open up diplomacy via technical and leaders-level talks between Iran and the U.S.,” his office added.
Araqchi said on Friday there was no room for negotiations with the U.S. “until Israeli aggression stops”. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump said he was unlikely to press “Israel” to scale back its airstrikes to allow negotiations to continue.
“I think it’s very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it’s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing, but we’re ready, willing and able, and we’ve been speaking to Iran, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
