Europe and Iran try diplomatic efforts as Trump’s term looming

European and Iranian officials met on Friday, but experts say they didn’t make much progress on whether they could have real talks, including about Iran’s disputed nuclear program, before Donald Trump takes office in January.

The talks in Geneva are the first since the U.S. election this month. They happen after a resolution backed by Europe last week slammed Iran for not cooperating with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. This made Tehran very angry.

Kazakhstanem Gharibabadi, who used to be Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA and deputy foreign minister, said on X, “Another round of honest talks with PDS (political directors) of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.” “It was agreed to continue diplomatic dialogue in near future.”

There was nothing important said at the meeting, but a European source said that Tehran was eager to see how communication could work in the coming weeks.

Trump hired well-known “hawks” on Iran for his new government. After pulling the US out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, Trump adopted a policy of “maximum pressure” that was meant to destroy Iran’s economy.

Majid Takhtravanchi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and top nuclear negotiator, met with Enrique Mora, the EU’s supervisor, on Thursday evening. On Friday, he had a number of meetings with the E3 group of European officials.

There are a lot of questions that remain after Trump’s return to power, but four European officials said that the E3 countries—the European countries that signed the 2015 accord—felt it was important to act now because time was running out.

On November 21, the E3 put through a motion by the IAEA board of governors that was critical of Iran. This showed how much both sides don’t trust each other.

They didn’t believe Iran’s last-minute move to limit its stock of uranium that is close to weapons grade because it wasn’t enough and wasn’t serious.

In response to the decision, Tehran told the IAEA that it was going to add more centrifuges for processing uranium to its enrichment plants.

Nicolas Lerner, the head of France’s foreign intelligence service, said in rare public comments on Friday that there was a real chance that Iran would get more nuclear weapons in the next few months.

Lerner and his British counterpart spoke together in Paris and said, “Our services are working together to face what is without a doubt one of the most, if not the most, critical threats of the coming months: possible atomic proliferation in Iran.” They also said that the two agencies were figuring out their strategy.

An source from Europe had said earlier that the main goal in Geneva was to try to come up with a schedule and structure for starting genuine talks so that there was a clear promise from Iran to start working on something real before Trump gets there.

Right away, it wasn’t clear if there had been any progress in this direction.

“If we finalise a roadmap with France, Britain and Germany on how to resolve the nuclear dispute, then the ball will be in the U.S. court to revive or kill the 2015 nuclear deal,” a top Iranian official said.

In the past few months, especially since Iran increased its military aid to Russia, the E3 have become harder on Iran.

However, they have always said that they wanted to keep up a strategy of discussion and pressure.

Officials in Iran say that their main goal will be to find ways to get sanctions lifted.

Fear of war

As part of the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to stop some of its nuclear activities in exchange for lifting some international sanctions. Since Trump pulled out of the deal, Iran has sped up its nuclear program and made it harder for the IAEA to keep an eye on it.

“There won’t be an agreement or any serious talks about the details of a deal until Trump takes office,” said Kelsey Davenport, who is in charge of non-proliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.

The talks also covered the situation in the Middle East and Iran’s military cooperation with Russia. They happened because of worries that a full-scale war could break out between Iran and its arch-rival Israel, even though Israel and Iran’s Hezbollah supporters have agreed to stop fighting in Lebanon. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he wanted Israel to pay more attention to Iran.

It is hoped that Iran will agree to start talking about new limits on its nuclear operations so that a deal can be reached by the summer.

That would be enough time to put new limits on Iran’s program and get rid of the sanctions before October 2025, when the agreement ends. It is not clear if Trump would agree to talks.