A number of Middle Eastern governments are trying to push the U.S. and Iran into talks to head off a possible conflict, efforts that so far are failing to gain traction as both sides dig in.
The diplomatic efforts have new urgency now that the U.S. has moved more firepower into the region and President Trump is making new threats to attack Iran if a deal isn’t reached. But Iran has stuck by its longstanding red lines for negotiations while the U.S. has toughened the terms it wants to see in a deal.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held separate calls Wednesday with his Iranian counterpart and Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff but made no progress. Iran strongly objected to the U.S. terms and warned targets across the region would be fair game in the event of a U.S. strike, people familiar with the conversations said.
Efforts by Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia in recent days were similarly fruitless, people familiar with those outreaches said.
The failures raise the risk of military conflict as the U.S. brings an aircraft carrier group, squadrons of warplanes and more missile defenses into the region to support a possible attack.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal,” Trump said Wednesday on social media.
“Time is running out,” he warned, before making a reference to last year’s U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. “The next attack will be far worse!”
A White House official declined earlier to comment on negotiations with Iran.
The developments wind the clock back to last spring, when Trump’s efforts to negotiate away Iran’s nuclear program failed and the country’s 12-day war with Israel ensued, with the U.S. entering the conflict toward the end.
This time the stakes for Iran’s theocratic rulers are even higher. The country was rocked at the beginning of the year by mass protests that were only put down with a deadly crackdown that left thousands dead. Iran’s economy is crumbling with little way out absent sanctions relief, which would require humiliating concessions on its nuclear program.
Yet Iran for now has stuck by the three principles that have governed its approach to talks with the West for two decades. It insists it won’t enter talks under pressure to sign up to pre-fixed goals by the U.S. It won’t give up what it calls its right to enrich uranium at home, and it is unwilling to negotiate constraints on its powerful ballistic-missile program.
Those conditions run up against Washington’s efforts to push Tehran into speedy talks under the threat of military force. It wants a deal to include zero Iranian enrichment and the removal of Iran’s enriched-uranium stockpile, along with limits on ballistic missiles and the reining in of Iran’s regional proxies.
Where U.S. officials said last spring they were open to agreeing to a basic framework for a deal before talks that would hammer it out in detail, that flexibility hasn’t been evident since Iran’s position weakened in June.
Qatar and Oman have sought ways to revive the negotiations, including some form of nonaggression pact, but people familiar with the discussions say the efforts haven’t gained traction.
Trump’s social-media post Wednesday said a “massive Armada” was “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” adding that it was “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.” The Pentagon’s buildup in the region includes an aircraft carrier with three guided-missile destroyers, warplanes and missile defenses.
Iranian officials are threatening massive retaliation against U.S. bases, warships and allies in the region.
“Our brave Armed Forces are prepared—with their fingers on the trigger—to immediately and powerfully respond to ANY aggression against our beloved land, air, and sea,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday on social media.
In a sign of Iran’s growing isolation, the European Union is set to agree on Thursday to take a step that Washington has long called for—list Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization, according to diplomats involved in discussions.
The move won’t have a major economic impact on Iran, because the Revolutionary Guard already faces U.S. and EU sanctions. But it represents a politically significant hardening of attitudes in Europe after Iran’s crackdown on protesters.
Speaking on her way into a meeting of EU foreign ministers, the bloc’s foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas said the EU move will place the Revolutionary Guard on the same footing with al Qaeda, Hamas and Islamic State.
“If you act as a terrorist, you should also be treated as terrorists,” she said.
Write to Summer Said at summer.said@wsj.com, Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com