On Monday, President Trump held a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and said they discussed Iran, among other issues.
Trump told reporters after the call that the US and Iran are set to hold a sixth round of negotiations on Thursday, although Iran later said that talks would be held in Oman on Sunday. Tehran is set to present a counter-offer to a recent US proposal.
Trump also doubled down on his demand that Iran must eliminate its nuclear enrichment program, an issue Tehran has made clear is a non-starter. “They’re just asking for things that you can’t do,” Trump said.
He said that Iran wouldn’t give up its enrichment program, calling the position “unacceptable.” Trump has been warning that he will bomb Iran if a deal isn’t reached, even though his intelligence agencies recently said there’s no evidence Tehran is working toward a nuclear weapon.
Netanyahu has also been threatening to bomb Iran, and reports have said that Israel is considering conducting the attack if the US pursues a deal that Israel doesn’t like. Iran has made clear that there will be consequences for any attack, and is now saying that it could hit Israel’s covert nuclear facilities in response.
According to a report from Haaretz, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors, which consists of member states, could vote this week to declare that Iran is not complying with the NPT despite its continued cooperation with the IAEA and the lack of evidence that it’s working toward a bomb.
If the Board of Governors makes the declaration, it could trigger the snapback mechanism for UN sanctions. Iran could respond by exiting the NPT altogether and moving its nuclear enrichment activity to sites deeper underground.
Amid the scrutiny of its civilian nuclear program, Iran has been drawing attention to Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program and says that it has obtained a trove of documents related to it that it will release soon.
