<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: source-sans-pro, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: capitalize; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: nowrap; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline !important; float: none;" id="isPasted">GENEVA: Iran and the United States began indirect talks in Switzerland on Thursday, a last-ditch bid to avert war following the biggest American military build-up in the Middle East in decades. The Oman-mediated discussions follow repeated threats from Donald Trump to strike Iran, with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/us-presses-missile-issue-as-new-iran-talks-to-open-in-geneva" target="_blank" style="color:#0073e6;" rel="noopener noreferrer">US president</a>&nbsp;last Thursday giving Tehran 15 days to reach a deal. The US and Iranian delegations arrived at the venue at the Omani ambassador&#39;s residence amid tight security, following a protest by Iranian exiles at their talks last week who threw objects at the Iranian motorcade. Oman&#39;s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi later confirmed that discussions had begun, saying the two sides had expressed &quot;unprecedented openness to new and creative ideas and solutions&quot;. Iran&#39;s president insisted ahead of the talks that the Islamic republic was not &quot;at all&quot; seeking a nuclear weapon. &quot;Our Supreme Leader has already stated that we will not have nuclear weapons at all,&quot; President Masoud Pezeshkian said, in a reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. United Nations nuclear chief Rafael Grossi would likely also attend the discussions in Geneva, Iran&#39;s foreign ministry spokesman said. While Iran has insisted the talks focus solely on its nuclear program, the US wants Tehran&#39;s missile program and its &#39;support&#39; for groups in the region curtailed. As part of the dramatic US build-up, the USS Gerald R Ford, the world&#39;s largest aircraft carrier, sent to the Mediterranean this week, left a naval base in Crete on Thursday, an AFP photographer said. The developments follow massive protests in Iran. &#39;Sinister nuclear ambitions&#39;&nbsp;In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Trump accused Iran of &quot;pursuing sinister nuclear ambitions&quot;, though Tehran has always insisted its program is for civilian purposes. Trump also claimed Tehran had &quot;already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they&#39;re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America&quot;. The Iranian foreign ministry called these claims &quot;big lies&quot;. The maximum range of Iran&#39;s missiles is 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) according to what Tehran has publicly disclosed. However, the US Congressional Research Service estimates they top out at about 3,000 kilometers -- less than a third of the distance to the continental United States. Trump&#39;s State of the Union accusations in Congress were delivered in the same forum in which then-president George W Bush laid out the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ahead of Thursday&#39;s talks, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Iran must also negotiate on its missile program, calling Tehran&#39;s refusal to discuss ballistic weapons &quot;a big, big problem.&quot; He followed up by saying, &quot;The president wants diplomatic solutions&quot;. But US Vice President JD Vance told Iran to take Trump&#39;s threats &quot;seriously,&quot; saying the US president had a &quot;right&quot; to use military action. &quot;You can&#39;t let the craziest and worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons,&quot; Vance told &quot;America&#39;s Newsroom&quot; on Fox News. &#39;A historic opportunity&#39;&nbsp;Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is leading the Iranian delegation at the talks, had called them &quot;a historic opportunity,&quot; adding that a deal was &quot;within reach.&quot; The US will be represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is married to Trump&#39;s daughter Ivanka. The two countries held talks earlier this month in Oman, then gathered for a second round in Geneva last week. A previous attempt at negotiations collapsed when Israel launched surprise strikes on Iran last June, beginning a 12-day war that Washington briefly joined to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. In Jan., Tehran launched a mass crackdown on nationwide protests. Protests have since resumed around Iranian universities.

Middle East

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterates that Tehran is not seeking nuclear weapons in line with the policy set by the country’s Supreme Leader; on Feb. 19, Trump said Iran had 15 days to make a deal.

Iran-US talks begin in push to avert war

TEHRAN: The son of Iran&#39;s president, who is also a government adviser, on Saturday called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government&nbsp;<a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-says-internet-to-gradually-return-to-normal" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">sentiment</a>. Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, &quot;Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.&quot; &quot;This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,&quot; he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the official IRNA news agency. Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored. Iran&#39;s more than 90 million people have been largely cut off from the internet since authorities imposed a <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/iran-says-3117-killed-in-protests-sparked-by-economic-grievances" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">blackout</a> on Jan. 8 amid major protests sweeping the country. Under the cover of the blackout, they launched a deadly crackdown on protesters, with rights groups documenting several thousand dead and the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights saying the final figure could top 25,000. The Iranian government has put the toll at 3,117, including 2,427 it has labelled &quot;martyrs,&quot; a term used to distinguish members of the security forces and innocent bystanders from those described by authorities as &quot;rioters&quot; incited by the <a href="https://www.pakistantv.com/article/trump-says-us-still-watching-iran-fleet-sailing-to-region" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);" rel="noopener noreferrer">US</a> and Israel. The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored. He pointed to concerns about the &quot;release of videos and images related to last week&#39;s &#39;protests that turned violent&#39;&quot; as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticised the logic. Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted &quot;&#39;He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.&#39;&quot; The president&#39;s son blamed foreign interference for the protests&#39; violent turn, but said &quot;the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed.&quot; He went on to say that &quot;the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won&#39;t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.&quot;

Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father Masoud was elected president in 2024, said, 'Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.'

Articles tagged with "Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian"

Iran-US talks begin in push to avert war

Son of Iranian president calls for end to internet blackout