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🔤🔤🔤🔤➖ The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has also said Iran’s refusal to discuss its ballistic missile programme is a problem, prompting Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, to complain about inconsistencies in the US negotiating demands. The talks are being held against the backdrop of Trump’s unprecedented buildup of US assets in the region, including two aircraft carrier strike groups, attack aircraft, plane-refuelling equipment and submarines equipped with Tomahawk missiles. At heart of the talks is whether the US will try to debar Tehran from almost all uranium enrichment. The right to enrich uranium domestically has long been seen as a symbol of Iranian national sovereignty, and was conceded by the US in the 2015 nuclear deal. Some of the dispute about enrichment can be deferred since Trump claimed that Iran’s three main nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan had been obliterated by US bombs last June, making it technically impossible to enrich uranium in high quantities for the foreseeable future. Tehran refused to allow the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the scale of the damage to the sites since the US attack. Rubio said on Wednesday: “They’re not enriching right now, but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.” One Iranian official in Geneva insisted: “The principles of zero enrichment for ever, dismantling of nuclear facilities and transferring uranium stocks to the US is completely rejected.” Trump now has the military assets in place to strike Iran either as part of an extended assault designed to enforce regime change, or to carry out a more targeted strike designed to force Tehran into a more flexible negotiating position. Trump’s coercive negotiating deadlines have always been flexible, but his military commanders will not want to keep such a large and expensive concentration of forces on a leash for much longer. Rubio said on Wednesday that the ballistic missile programme would have to be addressed at some point, an admission that the subject may not be on the immediate agenda, but could not be disbarred from later talks. He said: “Iran refuses to discuss the range of its missiles with us or anyone else, and this is a big problem for us. Iran has missiles that increase their range every year, and this could be a threat to the United States because the range of the missiles may reach American soil.” Its short-range missiles could also hit US bases in the region, he noted. #us#iran#war#talks#nuclear#missiles 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸