Iran International
A discussion on Iranian state television signaled cautious openness to future nuclear talks with Washington, with a commentator describing flexibility over preliminary exchanges while insisting Tehran’s conditions for ending the war must first be met.
Vahid Khazab, introduced as a military and political analyst, said on the state broadcaster’s Be Vaght-e Iran (Iran Time) talk show on Monday night that a significant development amid mediation efforts was Tehran’s willingness to discuss its nuclear program through intermediaries.
His account suggested room for diplomacy, but did not amount to an official announcement of a change in Iran’s negotiating position.
Iran has insisted that Washington accept its seven demands and end the war before nuclear negotiations begin. Khazab described preliminary discussions through intermediaries as a sign of “flexibility.”
However, he said, those discussions were limited to determining the issues that could be addressed in future nuclear negotiations, once Iran’s initial conditions had been accepted and the war ended.
Proposed nuclear compromise
According to Khazab, Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, has raised the possibility of allowing Iran to continue uranium enrichment at 3.67%. His account did not establish whether Washington had accepted that provision.
In exchange, the proposals include diluting Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, which Khazab put at 400 kilograms, or converting it into fuel rods for nuclear reactors.
The proposed arrangement would also include the release of part of Iran’s frozen assets, the return of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, and ultimately the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, Khazab said.
Tehran would likely regard any US acceptance of enrichment inside Iran as a major concession, he said. However, it would seek to negotiate how its highly enriched uranium stockpile is diluted and how much nuclear material remains inside the country.
He added that some Iranian experts had suggested gradual dilution to preserve part of the country’s nuclear capabilities for the “future, post-Trump era.”
Parallel mediation efforts
Pakistan, China, Iraq, Turkey and Qatar have been pursuing diplomatic initiatives amid concerns about renewed US military strikes against Iran.
Nima Akbarkhani, also introduced as a military expert on the program, said people with what he described as “greater access” had told him that the scale of mediation efforts in recent days was unprecedented compared with previous initiatives.
China has been among the countries involved. Ali Bagheri-Kani, a deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, traveled to China in early November and met with Beijing’s special envoy for Middle Eastern affairs, Zhai Jun.
Zhai subsequently traveled to Iran on November 8. According to Khazab, he met not only with Iranian Foreign Ministry officials but also with Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf.
Iraq has also been involved. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali Faleh al-Zaydi traveled to Iran late last week on an unannounced visit.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported that al-Zaydi met with President Masoud Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf. However, the agency said he had not obtained what it described as “a result satisfactory to the United States.”
Turkey has also been seeking to facilitate an agreement through political contacts with Washington and Tehran.
According to remarks attributed to Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Trump and expressed concern about renewed military attacks against Iran, urging him to refrain from further strikes.
Qatar, which has served as one of the main channels of communication between Tehran and Washington in recent months, is also attempting to bring the two sides back to negotiations.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani traveled to Washington on Monday and met with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Former Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani has also emphasized the need to resolve regional disputes.
Khazab interpreted his recent emphasis on cooperation to end Iran’s blockade as a possible shift in Qatar’s calculations under wartime conditions.
Iran denies plans for Vance-Rezaei meeting
Khazab also addressed reports that Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, could meet Vance in Qatar next week.
The discussion followed reports on Monday citing Kalin as saying Qatar would host the US vice president and Iran’s security chief the following week. Türkiye newspaper carried the Turkish intelligence chief’s remarks.
In his Monday night comments, Khazab suggested that reports of a possible meeting were not necessarily false, interpreting Iranian denials as a rejection of the existence of a specific arrangement.
According to the analyst, whether a meeting could take place would depend on Washington announcing its acceptance of Iran’s seven initial conditions for ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi dismissed reports of the meeting as “speculation and media fabrication” and described them as “baseless from the outset.”
“There are no plans for such a meeting,” he said.
Rezaei subsequently told Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen television in an interview on Tuesday that “the Americans’ claims about the continuation of negotiations or the holding of a meeting in Qatar are outright lies.”
He said the claims were being circulated solely to ease economic pressure and drive down oil prices.
Khazab’s argument for conditional engagement rested on Tehran’s distrust of Washington. He accused the United States of violating its commitments after an earlier agreement and memorandum of understanding, leading to renewed hostilities.
For that reason, he said, Iran did not want to enter another round of negotiations that might produce a temporary agreement followed by a return to war.
“We have no objection to negotiations, no objection to talking. But it must be done in a way that genuinely removes the threat of war,” Khazab said.
The US military moved tankers and tiltrotor aircraft out of RAF Mildenhall in eastern England on Monday over a threat from Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported, the second British base it has thinned out since a suspected Iran-linked plot at RAF Fairford in September.
Flight-tracking data showed nine KC-135 refueling tankers and three V-22 Ospreys leaving Mildenhall in Suffolk on Monday afternoon and evening, Sky News reported. Most of the tankers went to bases in Germany and Spain and one to Prestwick in Scotland. The Ospreys moved to nearby RAF Lakenheath.
The exact nature of the threat was still under discussion among US officials, the Journal said. Washington raised the security level at Mildenhall and Lakenheath to FPCON Charlie, the second-highest on the Pentagon’s scale, which applies when intelligence indicates that some form of terrorist action is likely.
US European Command said aircraft move between locations “for a variety of reasons” and that it could not discuss force protection measures.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said it did not comment on other nations’ activity. “We’re constantly keeping the security of our bases under review,” cabinet minister Lucy Powell told Sky News, “and as we’ve seen with other cases recently, we take firm and quick action where we need to.”
The move comes six weeks after police arrested five men in the early hours of September 27 near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which US bombers used to strike Iran during the war, after a local farmer reported three white vans and a group of men, some with their faces covered. The United States pulled all 12 of its B-1B bombers from Fairford on October 4.
Two men were charged last month under the National Security Act. Prosecutors said one, a British-Iranian dual national, had arranged for the men to drive to the base on the instructions of a man known only as “Ali,” and accused him of assisting a foreign intelligence service; police said they believed that country to be Iran. Six others remain on bail. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the plot was “almost certainly” directed by the Revolutionary Guards.
Iran’s ambassador in London has denied any involvement. The Revolutionary Guards warned Britain in July that Fairford and any other base used to attack Iran would be a legitimate target.
President Donald Trump’s talks with Qatar’s prime minister come amid a renewed diplomatic push to end the Iran war, but securing terms both Washington and Tehran can present as a victory remains a central obstacle, analysts told Iran International.
Trump and Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met behind closed doors in the Oval Office on Monday, and Axios reported that their discussions focused on Iran. The Qatari prime minister also met Vice President JD Vance earlier in the day.
An Iranian official told Al-Monitor on Friday that the country’s nuclear program was “under discussion” with mediators. Tehran has said negotiations depend on Washington meeting its demands, including sanctions relief and the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets.
Trump needs a nuclear achievement to justify the war, not just the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, said Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“It’s the nuclear issue. He needs a win to justify this war,” Miller told Iran International.
“And I don’t know whether the Iranians are prepared to make that concession or what Trump would consider to be a win that they could accept. So I think that’s a huge problem.”
Who moves first?
The new round of diplomacy has not settled the basic dispute: whether economic and military concessions should come before progress on Iran’s nuclear program, or after.
Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence and now a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said an interest in ending the war should not be mistaken for an agreement in sight.
“I believe both sides genuinely want to find a way to end this war, but that does not mean they are close to an agreement,” he told Iran International.
Iran wants Washington to meet its conditions on Hormuz, the naval blockade, oil exports and other economic restrictions before nuclear talks begin. Washington wants movement on the nuclear issue much earlier, he said. “The problem is not simply what each side wants, but who moves first.”
A breakthrough was possible, Citrinowicz said, if Washington accepted a different sequence of reciprocal steps. “Without meaningful American flexibility, however, I see little reason to expect Iran to abandon its red lines.”
Miller criticized the interim memorandum of understanding reached in June, which was meant to open the way to nuclear talks but collapsed soon afterward. It committed Washington to a sequence that favored Iran, he said, calling it “one of the worst negotiated documents in the history of US diplomacy.”
Two definitions of victory
Even if negotiators settle the order of steps, both governments would have to defend the concessions at home as achievements.
Trump could claim victory by reopening Hormuz, lowering energy prices, ending the fighting and securing an Iranian commitment not to build nuclear weapons, Citrinowicz said. Tehran would need an outcome it could present as a success too.
“After surviving months of attacks, the Iranian leadership is not going to accept an agreement that looks like surrender,” he said.
Iran could reopen Hormuz, stop attacks on shipping and regional infrastructure, return to nuclear talks and possibly accept tighter international monitoring, he said. In return it would expect real steps on sanctions, oil exports, frozen assets and guarantees against further attacks.
Miller doubted Trump’s wish to end the war would outweigh his fear of looking beaten. “I think he’d want to be done with this, but I don’t know if he’s prepared to spend the next three years being called a loser,” he said.
Eric Mandel, founder of the Middle East Political Information Network, said a deal could let Trump declare victory while leaving the nuclear dispute open.
“The president would like to have a diplomatic solution. The president is looking for victories. He may claim victories where there aren’t,” Mandel told Iran International.
Tehran was drawing out the talks to wait Trump out, Mandel said, and economic relief in exchange for promises of future nuclear concessions could throw the Islamic Republic a lifeline without securing lasting limits.
A meeting is not a breakthrough
Conflicting reports over a possible meeting between Vance and Iran’s security chief show how uncertain direct contact remains.
Turkey’s intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, said Qatar would host Vance and Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, next week, the Turkish newspaper Türkiye reported. The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, then quoted a senior Iranian security official as denying any meeting was planned and saying Washington must first act on Iran’s seven conditions.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday there were no plans for Rezaei to meet Vance. The war, he said, would end neither through military action nor through more sanctions. “The only way to end it is diplomacy and acceptance of the Islamic Republic’s conditions.”
Citrinowicz said Rezaei should not be expected to break with the Islamic Republic’s established positions. “He is deeply rooted in the Iranian political and security establishment,” he said. “He is not someone who can simply be persuaded to abandon the regime’s fundamental positions in exchange for an American offer.”
Rezaei is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice over his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. He and Tehran deny involvement. As commander of the Revolutionary Guards during the Iran-Iraq war, he led the failed Karbala-4 offensive of December 1986, in which Iran suffered heavy losses.
The decisive question, Citrinowicz said, is whether Vance has Trump’s authority to offer something substantially different.
“A failed meeting could be more dangerous than no meeting at all,” he said. Trump might conclude that diplomacy had run its course and order more strikes to force concessions.
Continued economic pressure, indirect talks and a limited interim deal would remain options, he said, but failure to close the gaps could raise the risk of a return to war.
US President Donald Trump said Monday the war with Iran was effectively over militarily but warned US forces remained “locked and loaded,” while Iran's security chief denied reports of talks with Washington and demanded acceptance of Tehran's conditions to end the conflict.
Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met Trump at the White House in an effort to secure more time for diplomacy and advance negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
“Iran, militarily, is effectively over. We're just keeping it the status quo,” Trump told reporters at the White House after meeting with the Qatari prime minister.
While Trump described the war as militarily “effectively over,” he emphasized the continuation of the US naval blockade and Operation Iron Gate in a Truth Social post, saying Iran's neighbors, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait, favored maintaining the “status quo.”
He warned that American forces remained “locked and loaded” if developments in the Middle East changed, but said further military action appeared unlikely.
Trump also said Iran had accepted that it could never acquire a nuclear weapon, despite publicly denying such a commitment.
“They understand that. They accept that. They don't admit that they accept it,” he told reporters, describing the prohibition on Iranian nuclear weapons as non-negotiable.
Trump told Al Thani during their meeting that he wanted an agreement with Iran and was willing to give negotiations a chance, but could reverse course if Tehran failed to engage seriously, Axios reported Monday, citing a diplomat briefed on the discussions.
Despite reports of Washington's willingness to pursue diplomacy, Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Mohsen Rezaei accused the United States of fabricating reports of negotiations and demanded that it accept Tehran's seven conditions.
“STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks,” Rezaei wrote on X.
“The war on Iran has already wrecked the US government. But Washington flails like a desperate gambler,” he added, urging Washington to recognize what he described as a new regional order in West Asia.
The Washington Post reported in October that US officials viewed Rezaei as a key contact in Tehran who could help build support for a nuclear agreement.
Vice President JD Vance sent Rezaei a letter in late October expressing his willingness to meet personally to discuss a negotiated settlement, The Washington Post reported, citing a US official familiar with the initiative.
Axios reported that Vance was also closely involved in the indirect talks through frequent contact with Qatar's prime minister.
Following the White House meetings, Al Thani said he had discussed ways to advance US-Iran negotiations with Trump and Vance.
“Grateful for the positive discussions on reaching a deal and bringing peace to the region,” he wrote on X.
The mediation efforts have focused on a proposal setting out reciprocal steps to reduce tensions and restart negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
Under the proposed two-day plan, Washington would first lift its naval blockade and release some frozen Iranian funds, while Tehran would invite UN nuclear inspectors to damaged sites, Axios reported. The Strait of Hormuz would reopen on the second day, followed by renewed talks over Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran was awaiting Washington's response to the proposal, which also calls for an end to hostilities on all fronts.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, however, said Sunday that indirect negotiations had produced little progress and described some Iranian demands as unrealistic.
“I wouldn't say we're on the verge of a breakthrough,” Rubio said, adding that Trump preferred a diplomatic solution but that one was not always possible.
Meanwhile, Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin said Monday that Vance and Rezaei were scheduled to meet in Qatar next week, according to Türkiye newspaper.
Speaking at a conference in Ankara, Kalin said the planned meeting in Doha could provide an opportunity to advance negotiations, warning that failure to reach an agreement could lead to another US attack on Iran.
Kalin said regional mediators were working on a seven-point proposal covering sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets, nuclear commitments and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The main disagreement, Kalin said, was over which side would take the first step.
Two Iranian analysts have offered contrasting assessments of what could prompt Donald Trump to launch another attack on Iran before the new US Congress convenes in January.
Speaking on the popular Tehran-based online talk show Azad, conservative commentator Mehdi Kharratiyan argued that the prospect of surging oil prices and damage to US financial markets could restrain Trump, despite his continued authority to order military action following the Republican defeat in the midterm elections.
International relations analyst Rahman Ghahremanpour disagreed, saying Trump might be willing to accept substantial economic costs if he believed America's international standing or his presidential legacy was at stake.
Kharratiyan warned that another major conflict could further disrupt energy supplies and push Brent crude prices as high as $130 a barrel, exposing the US and global economies to the risk of recession.
He argued that Iran would retaliate against regional infrastructure in the event of a major US attack, potentially worsening the economic consequences for Washington. Following the Republicans' heavy midterm losses, he said, Trump would struggle to justify another war that could further damage his party's prospects in the 2028 elections.
Ghahremanpour, however, argued that preserving American credibility could take precedence over financial considerations.
He drew a comparison with Britain's experience during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when London was forced to abandon its military intervention under international pressure, suggesting Trump would be determined to avoid a similar humiliation for the United States.
The discussion aired on Azad, known for hosting debates among commentators with opposing views. Its YouTube channel has more than 160,000 subscribers, and the episode had attracted nearly 190,000 views.
The platform was shut down by Tehran prosecutors in August over allegations of spreading false information and operating without a licence, but was allowed to resume broadcasting in late October.
Despite their disagreement over Trump's calculations, both analysts warned that the period before the new Congress convenes could be particularly dangerous for Iran.
“As long as Mr. Trump is in the White House and Netanyahu is in the prime minister's office in Israel, even if they are in a weakened position, the possibility of unpredictable actions, even foolish ones, or actions driven by desperation, remains,” Kharratiyan said.
“If we are not alert, we could suddenly be caught off guard, as we have been in the past.”
Kharratiyan said Iranian officials appeared determined not to allow another surprise attack. If Tehran concluded that Washington had decided to strike, he argued, Iranian forces could launch a pre-emptive attack.
He said a major US-Israeli operation would depend on Washington and Israel identifying an intelligence opportunity, finding potential assistance within Iran and believing they could disable Iran's ability to retaliate in the opening minutes.
Ghahremanpour also warned that Trump's midterm defeat could push him in opposite directions, making him either more cautious or more willing to take risks.
“The election results could make Trump more cautious in his foreign policy, but they could also make him act more boldly and recklessly,” he said in recent remarks to the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA).
“Which of these happens will naturally depend on Trump's own assessment and that of his team.”
Ghahremanpour, who favours a negotiated settlement, said the absence of substantial concessions from either Tehran or Washington suggested that any agreement reached in the coming days would likely be fragile, temporary and limited.
He argued that an understanding between Trump and congressional Democrats could reduce the risk of renewed war. But if the president anticipated aggressive moves against him once the new Congress convened, he might instead seek a military confrontation to reinforce America's standing and secure his political legacy.
Four Iranian reformist intellectuals have urged Tehran to seize an opportunity for diplomacy following Donald Trump's midterm election defeat, while warning that the US president could respond to his political setback by escalating rather than ending the war.
Writing in three articles published in the reformist newspaper Etemad on Sunday, November 8, Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas, sociologist Mahmoud Sadri, international relations analyst Alireza Ghandriz and political analyst Alireza Rajaei offered differing assessments of what Democratic control of Congress could mean for negotiations.
Their shared premise is that the elections have raised the domestic cost of the war for Trump without removing his authority to wage it. Trump himself acknowledged that “part of it was Iran,” while defending his decision to attack.
Haghshenas, a former leader of the National Trust Party, offered the most optimistic assessment, arguing that Tehran should move quickly rather than wait for uncertain political developments in Washington.
Citing reports of a purported letter from Vice President JD Vance proposing direct talks, Haghshenas argued that Vance, a potential contender for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination, had a political interest in ending a war that has damaged his party.
Echoing Qatar's prime minister, he urged both sides to accept a workable agreement rather than hold out for an ideal one.
Making a deal politically possible
Sadri and Ghandriz, writing jointly, argued that any agreement must be politically defensible in both Tehran and Washington.
They warned that Democratic opposition to Trump's handling of the war should not be mistaken for opposition to pressure on Iran.
President George W. Bush, they wrote, responded to the Republican defeat in the 2006 midterm elections by ordering a military surge in Iraq rather than withdrawing.
Citing the gradual normalisation of US-Vietnam relations in 1995 as a model, they proposed starting with limited humanitarian and maritime cooperation before expanding civil, academic and business ties.
Above all, they warned that presenting an agreement in Iran as an American surrender would undermine the very figures in Washington whose support would be needed to sustain it.
The danger of a wounded Trump
Rajaei offered the most guarded assessment, comparing Trump to a political gambler who might raise the stakes rather than accept a visible defeat. He stressed that he was describing political behaviour, not making a psychological judgment.
He outlined three possible scenarios: a limited agreement, continued pressure through sanctions and military threats, or renewed escalation triggered by failed negotiations, Israeli pressure or miscalculation.
Rather than trying to predict Trump's next move, Rajaei urged Tehran to strengthen crisis management, civilian resilience and transparent public communication.
His warning comes as Washington continues to combine diplomatic signals with military and economic pressure.
On the eve of the midterms, Trump said a deal with Iran “could happen,” and Tehran has since conveyed proposals through Qatari mediators. Meanwhile, the US naval blockade and sanctions remain in place.
Reports of preparations for a larger US offensive and the expected arrival of an aircraft carrier group in the region have added to uncertainty.
The conflicting signals make it difficult for Tehran to distinguish genuine negotiating opportunities from attempts to extract concessions under pressure.
Trump's record of abrupt changes in negotiating positions, including his public rejection of Iran's account of the Islamabad memorandum in June, adds to the risks of relying on a sweeping agreement rather than limited, reciprocal steps.
Each reversal could also strengthen Iranian hardliners who argue that Washington cannot be trusted, echoing Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's November 4 warning against expecting changes in US policy simply because political control shifts between parties.
The three articles offer a snapshot of reformist thinking at a moment when Tehran faces competing pressures to negotiate and maintain its confrontational posture.
Haghshenas sees an opportunity that should be seized quickly. Sadri and Ghandriz argue that any agreement must withstand political opposition on both sides. Rajaei warns that Trump's electoral defeat could encourage escalation rather than compromise.
What unites them is a warning that Trump's electoral defeat is neither an Iranian victory nor a guarantee of American restraint.