Officials from Europe met with their Iranian counterparts on Friday in hopes of reaching a diplomatic solution to the ongoing conflict between Iran and Israel, even as attacks continued.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Daivd Lammy said ahead of the meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, that a “window now exists” to end the crisis.
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After the talks concluded with no apparent breakthrough, Lammy said European ministers were “keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran,” and urged the country to continue talks with the U.S.
“This is a perilous moment,” he said, “and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict.”
Added uncertainty was cast on the possibility of reaching an agreement on Friday when Iran launched a fresh barrage of missile strikes on targets in the south of Israel, and on the northern city of Haifa.
The attacks came after the Israel Defense Forces said that it struck a number of military targets in Iran overnight, including facilities used for missile manufacturing. The Israeli military says it has now destroyed around half of Iran’s missile launchers, as well as killing a number of military personnel since last week.
President Donald Trump has also been weighing whether to launch a military strike on Iran. He is expected to make a decision within two weeks, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday, reading a statement from Trump in which the President said “there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.”
The U.S. and Iran have been engaged in protracted talks over a possible nuclear deal for the past two months, but a scheduled round of negotiations was cancelled after Israeli strikes began. “There is no room for negotiations with the U.S. until Israeli aggression stops,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly said while speaking on Iranian state TV on Friday.
Before negotiations in Geneva began, French President Emmanuel Macron said while talking to reporters in Paris that “Iran must show that it is willing to join the platform for negotiations we are putting on the table.”
Macron outlined particular focus points of the discussions, which included working towards zero uranium enrichment in Iran, the oversight of Iranian ballistic missiles, Iranian funding of proxy groups in the Middle East, and the release of foreign nationals in Iranian prisons.
As negotiations took place, a spokesperson for Iran’s Presidency said: “Iran believes in civilian dialogue … Directly or indirectly is not important.”
The spokesperson, Majid Farahani, added: “President Trump can easily stop the war by only one telephone [call] to [the] Israelis.”
Macron and Trump exchanged barbs earlier in the week after Trump departed the G7 summit early as the conflict between Iran and Israel mounted.
Trump called the French President “publicity seeking” after Macron told press that the U.S. had assured “they will find a cease-fire, and since they can pressure Israel, things may change.”
“President Emmanuel Macron, of France, mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a ‘cease fire’ between Israel and Iran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that.”
Trump’s latest stance on direct U.S. involvement comes after some uncertainty earlier this week, during which the President said: “I may do it, I may not do it, nobody knows what I’m going to do” when asked if he was moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities.
Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned on Wednesday that “the harm the US will suffer will definitely be irreparable if they enter this conflict militarily.”
European officials began talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi at around 4 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET) on Friday. Before talks began, Araghchi addressed the United Nations Security Council, calling last week’s initial attack from Israel as “an outrageous act of aggression” and a “stark violation of the U.N. charter” in his remarks.
Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Daniel Meron criticized the body for allowing Araghchi the floor at the meeting, saying in a letter addressed to council president Jurg Lauber, “Affording the Iranian foreign minister the floor before this body continues to undermine the council’s credibility and constitutes a blatant betrayal of the many victims of this regime worldwide.”
Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar was dismissive of the talks in Geneva in an interview on Friday. “All diplomatic efforts until now were not successful,” he said. “They usually use these talks in order to deceive, in order to waste time.”