As missiles flew between Israel and Iran, diplomats from Europe convened on Friday across a table from Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in Switzerland to try to find an off-ramp for a rapidly accelerating regional conflict.
But there were no signs of a breakthrough in the three hours of talks, with a defiant Mr. Araghchi saying afterward that Iran would consider a resumption of diplomacy only “once the aggressor was held accountable for the crimes committed.” He did say Iran was willing to speak to the Europeans again.
The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany were left to talk in generalities about the need for continued dialogue, which they hope will forestall a decision by President Trump to thrust the United States into the hostilities.
“We are keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran, and we urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States,” Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, said to reporters. “This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don’t see regional escalation of this conflict.”
France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, was similarly vague, declaring it was important to pursue a dialogue with Iran because “we believe there is no definitive military solution to the Iranian nuclear problem.”
With Mr. Trump having set a new deadline of two weeks before he decides whether to join Israel’s aerial campaign against military and nuclear sites in Iran, the diplomats delivered an urgent message to Mr. Araghchi that his government must make significant concessions in its nuclear program.
Expectations for the meeting were modest, given the wide gaps between Iran and the United States in their now-suspended negotiations. Yet Mr. Trump’s reprieve, after a week in which he seemed to be marching inexorably toward war, buoyed hopes somewhat, suggesting that there was still time to act.
The diplomacy, however, came against a fiery backdrop of strikes by both sides. A barrage of Iranian missiles struck several sites in Israel on Friday, severely injuring two people in the northern city of Haifa. Earlier, Israel announced overnight strikes on missile factories and a research center linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
Speaking to Iranian state media before the session, Mr. Araghchi said Iran viewed the United States as a “partner in this crime.” Mr. Trump, he noted, used the word “we” in social media posts about the Israeli military operation.
Among the issues on the table in Geneva, European diplomats said, was giving inspectors unfettered access to Iran’s nuclear facilities and cutting its stockpile of ballistic missiles, which it has fired against Israel in retaliation for Israeli strikes on military bases and nuclear installations.
Mr. Araghchi said he had made clear that those missiles were critical to Iran’s defense and “are not negotiable.”
The missile strikes on Thursday and Friday had a familiar pattern of military targets, but also inflicted widening damage on civilian areas in both countries. Israel struck the headquarters of an advanced research institute connected to Iran’s nuclear program. An Iranian missile hit a residential street in a city in southern Israel, leaving a large crater.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said he had ordered the military to increase its attacks on Iranian government targets to “destabilize the regime,” deter it from firing at Israel and displace the population of Tehran.
How much destruction Israel has inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program was still not clear. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, told the United Nations Security Council that the uranium enrichment site at Natanz had been seriously damaged but that there were no signs of damage to Fordo, a prime Israeli target that is built deep inside a mountain.
There was no sign of easing on the part of Israel, which did not take part in the meeting. Asked whether it would pause the attacks to give space for negotiations, Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told reporters, “We haven’t yet fulfilled our goals, so we are continuing.”
Israel, he said, expected Europe to stand firm in demanding a complete rollback of Iran’s nuclear program and the dismantling of its arsenal of ballistic missiles.
Mr. Lammy arrived in Geneva after meeting on Thursday at the White House with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to gauge American intentions and plead for diplomacy.
“We discussed how Iran must make a deal to avoid a deepening conflict,” Mr. Lammy said. “A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.”
British diplomats left that meeting cautiously optimistic that Mr. Trump would prefer a diplomatic solution to further military escalation, provided any deal with Tehran was genuine, according to a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Friday that the diplomats were planning to extend a “comprehensive diplomatic and technical negotiation offer” to Iran and that the Iranian government needed to “show its willingness to join the negotiating platform we will be putting on the table.”
“No one can seriously believe that this threat can be addressed with the current operations alone,” Mr. Macron said during a visit to the Paris Air Show. He noted that some of Iran’s enrichment facilities were “extremely protected” and that it was not entirely clear where Iran stockpiled its enriched uranium.
Britain, France and Germany reconstituted a diplomatic group, known as the E3, which conducted on-again, off-again talks with Iran in the early 2000s and played an important role in negotiations that resulted in Iran signing a nuclear agreement with the West in 2015. The foreign ministers were joined by the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas.
In Mr. Araghchi, the Europeans confronted a seasoned negotiator who hammered out the framework of that deal in secret talks with emissaries from the Obama administration in 2013. Mr. Trump withdrew from the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in 2018.
The images of Iranian and European diplomats gathering at the InterContinental Hotel in Geneva were reminiscent of earlier high-stakes negotiations. In November 2013, marathon talks at the same hotel ended in frustration after France objected that the West was not doing enough to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment.
This time around, the Europeans have played mostly a bystander role in a drama that pits Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mr. Trump against Iran’s leaders, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The mixed results of Friday’s meeting are a reminder to them of the challenges of diplomacy with Iran.
Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting from Geneva, and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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