Ready for compromise if US lifts sanctions: Iran

Iran is ready to consider compromises to reach a nuclear deal with the United States if Washington is willing to discuss lifting sanctions, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi told the BBC in an interview published yesterday.

Iran has said it is prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions, but has repeatedly ruled out linking the issue to other questions including missiles.

Takht-Ravanchi confirmed that a second round of nuclear talks would take place tomorrow in Geneva, after Tehran and Washington resumed discussions in Oman earlier this month.

“(Initial talks went) more or less in a positive direction, but it is too early to judge,” Takht-Ravanchi told the BBC.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed at a White House meeting on Wednesday that the US would work to reduce Iran’s oil exports to China, Axios reported, citing two US officials briefed on the issue.

“We agreed that we will go full force with maximum pressure against Iran, for example, regarding Iranian oil sales to China,” Axios reported on Saturday, quoting a senior US official.

Asked about the report, China’s foreign ministry said yesterday that “normal cooperation between countries conducted within the framework of international law is reasonable and legitimate, and should be respected and protected.”

China accounts for more than 80 percent of Iran’s oil exports. Any reduction in that trade would mean lower oil revenue for Iran, reports Reuters.

Iranian authorities have without prior warning transferred Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi to a prison in the north of the country as concern grows over her health, her family said on Saturday.

Mohammadi, who won the peace prize in 2023 in recognition for more than two decades of campaigning, was arrested on December 12 in the eastern city of Mashhad after speaking out against Iran’s clerical authorities at a funeral ceremony, reports AFP.

She spent time on hunger strike earlier this month and had been hospitalised before being returned to prison.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said this week it was “deeply appalled” by reports detailing “physical abuse and ongoing life-threatening mistreatment” of Mohammadi both during her arrest and in detention.