Iran's top diplomat said Friday that his country's missile and defense capabilities would "never" be on the negotiating table, as US President Donald Trump appeared to cool on threats of a strike after a military build-up in the region.
Tehran and Washington have been trading warnings since Trump first threatened to intervene over a deadly crackdown on recent protests and sent a naval fleet to the Middle East.
But the US president brought the temperature down late on Thursday, saying he hoped to avoid military action and that talks with Iran were on the cards, having pressured Tehran for a deal on its nuclear programme, which the West believes is aimed at making an atomic bomb, AFP reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran was "ready to begin negotiations if they take place on an equal footing, based on mutual interests and mutual respect", during a visit to Türkiye, which has led a diplomatic push to mediate between Tehran and Washington.
But, he emphasised, "I want to state firmly that Iran's defensive and missile capabilities will never be subject to negotiation", adding that no plans were in place to meet with US officials about resuming talks.
The Axios news site on Monday reported that US officials say any deal with Tehran would have to include a cap on its stockpile of long-range missiles, along with the removal of enriched uranium from the country and a ban on independent enrichment.
Serhan Afacan, director of IRAM, the Ankara-based Center for Iranian Studies, told AFP that trying to broker a deal now on the nuclear file along with other issues would likely "be impossible".
"For now, the ballistic missile program remains a red line, as it sits at the core of Iran's defense architecture," he said.
- 'Reducing' tensions -
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said restarting talks between Tehran and Washington over Iran's nuclear program was "vital for reducing regional tensions".
Speaking at a joint press conference in Istanbul with Araghchi, he said Israel was pushing for the United States to attack Iran, and urged Washington to "act with common sense and not allow this to happen".
Iran has blamed the United States and Israel for the protests that erupted in late December over economic grievances and peaked on January 8 and 9, accusing the two countries of fuelling a "terrorist operation" that turned peaceful demonstrations into "riots".
Araghchi was also due to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who told his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian by phone earlier Friday that Türkiye was "ready to assume a facilitating role between Iran and the United States to de-escalate the tensions".
Pezeshkian, meanwhile, said the success of diplomacy depended on the "goodwill of the parties involved and the abandonment of belligerent and threatening actions in the region", his office said.
As well as Türkiye's diplomatic efforts to stave off a military confrontation, Erdogan has also been pushing Washington for a high-level trilateral meeting, a Turkish diplomat said, confirming local media reports.
