Report reveals how Iran's 'dire' situation forced Khamenei to relent to Trump offer of talks
According to NYT, two top regime officials urged Khamenei to allow negotiations, saying that the stalemate would entail a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran's two major nuclear facilities
A New York Times report on Friday reveals how Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was forced to relent and allow nuclear talks with the United States, fearing the Islamic Republic's dire economic situation and widening popular unrest could topple the regime.
According to NYT, two top regime officials urged Khamenei to allow negotiations, saying that the stalemate would entail a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran's two major nuclear facilities.
“Mr. Khamenei’s turnaround demonstrates his long-held core principle that ‘preserving the regime is the most necessary of the necessities,’” Hossein Mousavian, a former diplomat who served on Iran’s nuclear negotiating team on a 2015 deal, told NYT.
It was this turnaround that was behind U.S. President Donald Trump's surprise announcement on Monday that Washington and Tehran would begin talks in Oman, a Gulf state that has mediated between the West and the Islamic Republic before.
Should the talks fail, Trump clarified, the only alternative is the military option.
"If it requires military, we're going to have military. Israel will obviously be very much involved in that, they''ll be the leader of that. But nobody leads us. We do what we want to do."