A diplomat cited by British media said US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were serving as ‘Israeli assets’ during the talks, pushing Trump into the war
News Desk - The Cradle
According to the report, Powell thought what Iran was proposing was “surprising.”
“The UK team were surprised by what the Iranians put on the table. It was not a complete deal, but it was progress and was unlikely to be the Iranians’ final offer. The British team expected the next round of negotiations to go ahead on the basis of the progress in Geneva,” the sources explained.
“Jonathan thought there was a deal to be done, but Iran were not quite there yet, especially on the issue of UN inspections of its nuclear sites.”
The report went on to say that US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law and unofficial advisor Jared Kushner invited Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the talks.
A former official told The Guardian that “Witkoff and Kushner did not bring a US technical team with them.”
“They used Grossi as their technical expert, but that is not his job. So, Jonathan Powell took his own team,” the former official added.
“Witkoff’s pronouncements on the Iran nuclear program were riddled with basic errors,” despite the envoys claiming they had “a pretty deep understanding of the issues that matter in this.”
The next round of talks was planned for 2 March. On 28 February, the US and Israel launched the attack.
“The UK saw no compelling evidence of an imminent threat of an Iranian missile attack on Europe, or of Iran securing a nuclear weapon … The UK regarded the attack as unlawful and premature since Powell believed the path remained open to a negotiated solution to the long-running issue of how Iran could reassure the US that it was not seeking a nuclear weapon,” the report said.
A diplomat with knowledge of the negotiations said, “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.”
Before the war, Trump claimed not only that Iran was seeking a nuclear bomb, but also that it wanted to build missiles capable of reaching the US. Intelligence assessments have refuted this.
According to a report by Responsible Statecraft, Kushner and Witkoff “offered misleading advice that helped push the US toward conflict.”
People present at the US–Iran talks told MS Now earlier this month that Witkoff falsely claimed that the Iranians had “bragged” that they had enough enriched uranium for 11 nuclear bombs.
The report by The Guardian comes as the brutal US-Israeli war on Iran has entered its third week.
Tehran has launched a massive and unprecedented campaign of retaliatory strikes on Israel as well as US military bases and energy infrastructure across the region. The global price of oil has now shot up past $100 and is expected to continue rising.
Joe Kent, head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, officially resigned over his opposition to the war on 17 March.
No comments:
Post a Comment