![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Rafael_Mariano_Grossi_meeting_with_HE_Dr._Seyed_Abbas_Araghchi_51102694356-scaled-1-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIran will shortly reach nuclear-weapon capacity. And the agreement intended to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons will expire soon.\u2028The U.S. and Israel have declared that they will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and promise a military response if the recently resumed talks on Iran\u2019s nuclear program drag on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi (right) met with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, then Deputy Foreign Minister, at IAEA headquarters in Vienna in April 2021. Photo: Dean Calma\/IAEA<\/p>\n
A meeting behind closed doors in the UN Security Council discussed Iran\u2019s nuclear program in mid-March. That same day, U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader via the United Arab Emirates, stating that he wanted an agreement to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons to prevent possible military action from the U.S. and Israel. A few days later in Beijing, China hosted secret talks with Iran and Russia on Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons.
\nIran is ready to begin indirect talks with the U.S. about its nuclear program \u201cwith the aim of reaching an agreement,\u201d wrote Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in the Washington Post in early April. But Trump must first agree that there can be no \u201cmilitary option,\u201d Araghchi emphasized, adding that Iran \u201cwould never accept coercion.\u201d\u2028That the negotiations in Oman on April 12 were to be indirect contradicted Trump\u2019s claims shortly afterward when he asserted they would be \u201cdirect talks.\u201d
\nThe U.S. withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement during Trump\u2019s first term. The nuclear deal with Iran signed by several major powers in 2015 allowed Iran to finance a military build-up and continue supporting its terror proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, the U.S. stated when it exited the agreement in 2018.<\/p>\n
At a White House press conference with Trump and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the message was clear: they had agreed that \u201cIran will not have nuclear weapons\u201d and that \u201cthe military option\u201d would be implemented if the talks were delayed.
\nIran has increasingly violated the restrictions imposed under the existing nuclear deal and has stockpiled enough highly enriched uranium to produce several bombs, according to the BBC.\u2028The U.S. Department of the Treasury issued new sanctions against Iran\u2019s nuclear program just days before American and Iranian officials held their talks in Oman on April 12.
\n\u201cThe Iranian regime\u2019s reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons remains a serious threat to the United States and a threat to regional stability and global security,\u201d said U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement.\u2028Ahead of the meeting, Trump warned that it would \u201cbe a very bad day for Iran\u201d if the talks failed.\u2028\u201cI think everyone agrees that making a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. has reimposed sanctions on Iran since Trump began his second term. The UN\u2019s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned in February that Iran had stockpiled enriched uranium theoretically soon sufficient for six nuclear bombs.
\nKhamenei\u2019s advisers recently warned that \u201ccontinued external threats\u201d could lead to the expulsion of UN inspectors and the transfer of enriched material to secret locations. Iran may suspend cooperation with the UN\u2019s nuclear oversight if external threats persist, said an adviser to Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader after the U.S. president once again warned of military action if Tehran does not agree to a nuclear deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The world holds its breath as Iran approaches nuclear weapons capability<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-2499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-big-news-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2499"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3026,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2499\/revisions\/3026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}