Iran Withdraws From Nuclear Talks With America
By Yadnom Awu/ Asaba
Iran has opted out of its upcoming nuclear talks with America.
The talks were due tomorrow ( Sunday), and would have been the sixth round of dialogue between officials of both countries on the nuclear programme of Iran.
An official statement by Teheran tonight, said that the talks would be a dead rubber outing, given what Israel had opted for on the matter.
Israel, on Friday, began a high heel military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, military brass and core nuclear scientists.
The military assaults continued today with strikes on air defence systems, energy and other assets, including the South Pars Gas Plant, one of the single largest in the world.
Israel insists that its strikes, which it said could go on for long, were to lay waste the nuclear programme of Iran.
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, based in Vienna, Austria, had warned, just like China, Pakistan and Russia, all nuclear states, that resorting to the military option by Israel was illegal, unwise and dangerous.
Specifically, Russia said the Israeli action was a political overreach and legally in breach of international law.
Russia’ s leader, Vladimir Viktor Putin, had, in pursuit of the return to diplomacy, today had a telephone conversation with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, on the urgent necessity for effective return to international diplomacy.
It was not clear if Trump, during the call, made any commitments to Putin regarding pressuring Israel to ceasefire and allow diplomacy resume pivotal place in the search for an end to Iran’s s nuclear programme issue.
Trump, like the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had said that military pressure, not diplomacy, would compel Iran to return to negotiations.
Trump had warned, on the heels of Israel ‘s launch of its military campaign in Iran, that nothing would be left of the” Iranian Empire” if it failed to embrace peace and resume negotiations.
Iran had said that America was imposing unacceptable conditions on it during their talks in order to provide an alibi for Israel to attack it.
During the first wave of Israel’ s attacks on Iran, America reportedly provided technical expertise, actionable intelligence,attack aircraft and aerial cover for it( Israel), which also got strategic aerial defence support from Washington, Britain, Cyprus and Iraq, when Iran launched its retaliay military strikes on Israel.
Iraqi airspace was the launch pad for the 200 attack aircraft that Israel deployed on the first day of its assault on Iran.
