As the United States appears to inch closer to war in the Middle East, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sat down for an exclusive interview with “Morning Joe” on Friday to discuss where negotiations stand between the two countries.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump said a decision on military action would be made in the next two weeks. “So now we may have to take it a step further, or we may not,” Trump said at the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington. “Maybe we’re going to make a deal. You’re going to be finding out over the next, probably, 10 days.”
On “Morning Joe,” Araghchi warned the U.S. against taking military action to restrict Iran’s nuclear powers, telling MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough, “there is no military solution.”
The foreign minister said that if the administration wanted to “ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and would remain peaceful forever, the only solution is diplomatic negotiation and coming to a diplomatic solution.”
Araghchi stressed, however, that if the two countries fail to come to an agreement, Iran is prepared to take whatever actions it deems necessary. “We are prepared for diplomacy, and we are prepared for negotiation as much as we are prepared for war,” he said.
Scarborough asked Araghchi about the specifics of the negotiations between the two countries, referring to recent reports that the U.S. has demanded a permanent suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. But according to the foreign minister, Iran has not “offered any suspension, and the U.S. side has not asked for zero enrichment.”
When it comes to Trump’s 10-day timeline, Araghchi told Scarborough that “no ultimatum” has been issued and that negotiators from both the U.S. and Iran are focused on a “fast deal” that benefits both countries.
“Obviously, any day the sanctions are terminated — sooner, it will be better for us, so we have no reason to delay a possibility or buying time. Not at all,” he continued. “On the other side, for the U.S. side also, President Trump and his team are interested in a quick deal, so we agreed to work with each other to achieve a deal as soon as possible. The only question is how to make it a fair deal, a win-win deal, an equitable deal, and that is the difficult part of that.”
The foreign minister told Scarborough he believes a “diplomatic solution” is within reach. “I have been in this business in the past 20 years and negotiated with different parties. I know that a deal is achievable,” he said, adding that a military attack from the U.S. “would only complicate this” and “bring about disastrous consequences, not only for us, perhaps for the whole region and for the whole international community.”
At the end of the interview, Scarborough told Araghchi that Trump “often watches this show” and asked if he had any message to deliver directly, either to the president or to members of Congress.
“The message is that previous U.S. administrations, even the current U.S. administration, have tried almost everything against us — war, you know, sanctions, snapback, everything — but none of them worked,” the foreign minister responded.
“If you talk with the Iranian people with the language of respect, we respond with the same language. But if they talk to us with the language of force, we will reciprocate in the same language,” Araghchi said.
You can watch Araghchi’s full interview on “Morning Joe” in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”