German, French, and British foreign ministers will all sit down with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva on Friday in a diplomatic effort to avert further conflict in the Middle East and get Iran’s nuclear programme back on the negotiating table, a German diplomatic source said.
The ministers will initially meet with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas at Germany’s permanent mission in Geneva, before sitting down for a joint session with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. The meeting is taking place in coordination with the United States, the source continued.
This fresh diplomatic push follows increased regional tensions in the wake of Israel’s massive military onslaught on Iran a week ago and Tehran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israeli territories. The US President Donald Trump has yet to state whether Washington will support Israel militarily, leading to fears of an expanded war.
The EU-led effort seeks to obtain strong guarantees from Iran that its nuclear program will be purely civilian in nature. Friday’s talks are set to result in an orderly expert-level discussion centered around technical assurances, the German source says.
Israel says its aim is to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear arms, while Tehran reaffirms that its program is purely peaceful.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has recently backed Israel’s military response and threatened Iran with “further destruction” if it doesn’t de-escalate. In the meantime, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called on Iran to return to diplomacy on Wednesday, stating, “It’s never too late to come to the negotiating table.”
Geneva was one of the first high-level efforts by European powers to head off a risky nuclear crisis from escalating into a wider regional conflict, and to re-engage Iran into an international framework of accountability regarding its nuclear program.