Scoop: U.S., Iran held indirect talks this week on avoiding more attacks

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Axios

3 hours ago


Two top Biden administration officials held indirect talks with Iranian officials in Oman this week on how to avoid escalating regional attacks, two sources with knowledge of the talks told Axios.

Why it matters: The talks — involving President Biden's top Middle East adviser, Brett McGurk, and Abram Paley the acting U.S. envoy for Iran — were the first round of discussions between the U.S. and Iran since January, when similar negotiations were held in Oman.

The talks occurred just over a month after Iran's unprecedented missile assault on Israel on April 13.

The attack put the Middle East on the cusp of a regional war.

Driving the news: Iran fired 350 ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel in retaliation for Israel's assassination of Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top Iranian Quds Force general in charge of that nation's military operations in Lebanon and Syria.

It was the first-ever direct attack on Israel that had been launched from Iranian soil.

Zahedi had been killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a building near the Iranian Embassy in Damascus.

Iran's attack was defeated in an unprecedented joint air and missile defense effort by Israel, the U.S., the U.K., France, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Several days after the attack, Israel responded with a targeted strike on an S-300 air defense system at Iranian air force base.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/05/17/biden-us-iran-regional-attacks

[JoseBalow]

1. How's that Iranian nuclear weapons program coming along?

[tornado34jh]

2. Honestly, I am skeptical of the whole nuclear weapons program

I am not saying that they might not be doing so, but we've been saying that for years, yet no one has provided any concrete evidence as of recent. But to be quite frank, even if they are, what do the other countries care? It's not like they are going to get of their nuclear weapons. I have no sympathy for the Iranian government, but I also am not sympathetic to those complaining about Iran making nuclear weapons. The world either is for nuclear weapons or not. That's it, no picking and choosing. If you want one country to not have nuclear weapons, then the same thing has to be applied to all other countries. I rather would have no country have nuclear weapons, but that is never going to happen.