The move comes as U.S. is bolstering its forces in the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently sent a second aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy’s USS Carl Vinson, to join the USS Harry S. Truman‘s carrier strike group, whose deployment was also extended.
The U.S. also recently deployed two B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean, a warning to Iran and Yemen’s Houthi militia. The planes are capable of carrying 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs and are now situated within range of Iran.
Weeks ago, Trump wrote a letter to Iran urging the regime to engage in talks on its nuclear program.
Kamal Kharazi, the top foreign policy adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said on Thursday that the regime would engage in “indirect” talks, according to local news reports.
“The Islamic Republic has not closed all the doors and is willing to begin indirect negotiations with the United States.”
“Our policy is to not negotiate directly while there is maximum pressure policy and threats of military strikes,” foreign minister Abbas Aragchi explained. “But indirect negotiations can take place as they have in the past.”
If talks falter, the U.S. and Israel have floated the possibility of targeted strikes on underground nuclear facilities.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration launched a series of offensive attacks on the Houthis in Yemen to send a message to Tehran, which supports them.
“Let nobody be fooled! The hundreds of attacks being made by Houthi, the sinister mobsters and thugs based in Yemen, who are hated by the Yemeni people, all emanate from, and are created by, IRAN,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
“Iran has played ‘the innocent victim’ of rogue terrorists from which they’ve lost control, but they haven’t lost control,” he continued. “They’re dictating every move, giving them the weapons, supplying them with money and highly sophisticated Military equipment, and even, so-called, “Intelligence.'”
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