US President Donald Trump says Iran is engaged in “serious discussions” with Washington aimed at de-escalating tensions, presenting the opening as potentially “acceptable” enough to avert military strikes. According to a senior American official, the administration is ready to negotiate further, with Turkey, Egypt and Qatar trying to arrange a meeting in Ankara between White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials.
Tehran is more guarded. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Iran has “lost trust” in the United States as a negotiating partner, even as exchanges via intermediaries have proved “fruitful”. He says a deal is achievable if talks are confined to nuclear issues, flatly rejecting any attempt to widen the agenda to Iran’s ballistic missile programme or its support for regional proxy groups. Such demands, he says, amount to “impossible things”. Trump, by contrast, has laid down two conditions to avoid US military action: no nuclear capability and an end to the killing of protesters.
These parallel tracks of diplomacy and threat are reinforced by a visible military build-up. Trump has described the US deployment as a “massive armada”, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln operating in the Arabian Sea. Although the language signals deterrence, it has sharpened anxieties in Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that any American attack would trigger a wider conflict, insisting that “this time it will be a regional war”. Iran, he said, would not be intimidated by American ships, framing resolve as a matter of national dignity rather than tactical calculation.
The presence of Israel complicates the situation further. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has convened senior defence officials, including Defence Minister Israel Katz and Mossad chief David Barnea, after discussions between Israeli and US officials in Washington. While Trump hints at a possible deal, Israeli reporting suggests Washington may be closer to striking Iran than it was days earlier. Former IDF military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin says that although western logic suggests Iran would avoid a war it cannot win, a different, more ideological calculus could still produce a surprise move. That risk, he says, demands constant preparedness and clear deconfliction mechanisms between American and Israeli forces.
Iran was expected to begin live-fire naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital chokepoint for global energy flows, only for an Iranian official to deny that such exercises were planned. US Central Command has warned Iran against “unsafe and unprofessional behaviour” near its forces, a warning Araghchi dismissed as an attempt to dictate how Iran should operate on its own turf.
Domestic pressures inside Iran complicate every calculation. Trump has cited internal unrest as a trigger for potential intervention, while Khamenei has portrayed widespread protests as a foreign-backed “sedition similar to a coup” aimed at destroying sensitive centres. He says the plot was suppressed and has accused the US of seeking to “devour” Iran’s oil and gas resources through destabilisation. Public anxiety has grown after unexplained explosions in cities such as Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz, which authorities blamed on gas leaks, fuelling rumours and mistrust.
Relations with Europe have also deteriorated. After the European Union designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organisation, parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said Iran would treat EU armies as terrorist groups. Lawmakers responded theatrically, donning IRGC uniforms in parliament and chanting “Death to America”. The spectacle underlines the regime’s confrontational public posture even as backchannel diplomacy continues.
