Iran met with European powers in Istanbul on Friday to discuss nuclear talks with Washington, as U.S. President Donald Trump issued a fresh warning urging Tehran to “move quickly” toward a deal.
The meeting came after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi cautioned that Britain, France and Germany risk triggering “irreversible” consequences if they push to reimpose U.N. sanctions lifted under the 2015 landmark agreement.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi, who took part in the Istanbul talks, shared on X that they “exchanged views and discussed the latest status of the indirect nuclear negotiations and the lifting of sanctions.”
He added that Tehran is ready to meet again with the E3 – the European signatories of the 2015 deal – along with China, Russia and the U.S., to continue negotiations following several rounds of talks since last year.
Trump effectively torpedoed the deal during his first term by unilaterally abandoning it in 2018 and reimposing sanctions on Iran’s banking sector and oil exports.
A year later, Iran responded by rolling back its own commitments under the deal, which provided relief from sanctions in return for U.N.-monitored restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities.
Speaking Friday in Abu Dhabi, Trump said his administration had handed Iran a proposal for a new agreement after four rounds of negotiations in recent weeks.
“They know they have to move quickly or something bad is going to happen,” Trump said.
The Oman-mediated Iran-U.S. talks were the highest-level contact between the two foes since Washington abandoned the nuclear accord.
Araghchi earlier denied a report about a draft agreement, saying, “We have not been given anything.”
The three European powers have been weighing whether to trigger the 2015 deal’s “snapback” mechanism, which would reinstate U.N. sanctions in response to Iranian noncompliance – an option that expires in October.
Such a stance “risks provoking a global nuclear proliferation crisis that would primarily affect Europeans themselves,” Iran’s top diplomat warned.
However, writing in the French weekly Le Point, he also noted that Tehran was “ready to turn the page” in its relations with Europe.
Gharibabadi said after Friday’s meeting that “Iran and the three European countries are determined to sustain and make optimal use of diplomacy.”
Tehran’s official IRNA news agency said the European Union’s deputy secretary-general for political affairs, Olof Skoog, “is scheduled to meet with the Iranian delegation” later Friday.
A U.S. official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Friday with the French, British and German national security advisers in Istanbul for talks on Iran and Ukraine.
Araghchi has said the talks with the Europeans and the U.S. are proceeding on separate tracks.
China, which held recent talks with Iran on its nuclear program, said ahead of Friday’s talks that it remained “committed to promoting a political and diplomatic settlement of the Iran issue.”
Beijing also “valued Iran’s commitment to not develop nuclear weapons,” according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian.
Speaking on a visit to Qatar Thursday, Trump said the U.S. was “getting close” to a deal with Iran that would avert military action.
“We’re not going to be making any nuclear dust in Iran,” he said.
Since returning to office, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails.
Trump said he presented Iran’s leadership with an “olive branch,” adding that it was an offer that would not last forever.
He further threatened to impose “massive maximum pressure,” including driving Iranian oil exports to zero if talks failed.
Iran currently enriches uranium to 60%, far above the 3.67% limit set in the 2015 deal but below the 90% needed for a nuclear warhead.
Tehran insists its right to continue enriching uranium for peaceful purposes is “nonnegotiable” but says it would be open to temporary restrictions on how much uranium it enriches and to what level.
On Wednesday, Iran’s atomic energy agency chief, Mohammad Eslami, reiterated that Tehran “does not seek nuclear militarization,” adding that enrichment is under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
“The dismantling of enrichment is not accepted by Iran,” he stressed.
