Non-essential United States government staff and their families have been authorised to leave Israel immediately in light of the threat of an American strike on Iran. The United Kingdom has temporarily withdrawn staff from its embassy in Tehran.
China, India and Canada are among a number of other countries which have told their citizens to leave Iran as soon as possible due to the prospect of hostilities.
A Department of State advisory urged US citizens that they should “consider leaving Israel while commercial flights are available”. In addition, ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, sent an email to staff urging those that wanted to leave to “do so TODAY”.
This came as talks in Geneva between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended inconclusively.
While there was a suggestion that further negotiations would continue next week, the key mediator, Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, flew to Washington in what was reported as seeming a last-ditch effort to persuade the Trump administration not to order any strike.
The US has deployed two carrier strike groups, in the Arabian Sea and the Mediterranean, with President Donald Trump warning that he will order a strike on Iran if he believes Tehran is not serious about ending its nuclear activities.
In his first comments since the talks on Thursday, Trump said: “I’m not happy with the fact that they’re not willing to give us what we have to have. So I’m not thrilled.” He stressed that he did not want to use military force against Iran, but said sometimes “you have to”.
After the talks on Thursday ended, Iran said there had been “good progress”, but there was no official response from the US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which was considered ominous.
Vice-President JD Vance told the Washington Post that military action remained a possibility, but that there was “no chance” of the US becoming involved in a drawn-out war.
“I think we all prefer the diplomatic option,” Vance said. “But it really depends on what the Iranians do and what they say.”
Iran has resisted Washington’s demand that it export its highly enriched uranium stockpile to the US, and insists it will not cease domestic enrichment of uranium. It has said it would commit to needs-based enrichment and for now would require only 20% or lower purity levels at its Tehran research reactor, the fuel for which comes from Russia.
The site mainly makes medical isotopes used to diagnose illnesses such as heart disease. Iran’s three main nuclear facilities were destroyed by US bombing last June.
Meanwhile, the State Department announced that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be visiting Israel on Monday, and was expected to have talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on “a range of regional priorities” including Iran.
Reporting for BBC Persian, Pouya Ghorbani writes: “Across Iranian cities, many are living through sleepless nights and anxious days amid the continued speculation that the United States could be about to carry out military strikes.
“Some young people in particular are obsessively checking plane- and ship-tracking platforms – some fearful of external intervention, others quietly or openly hoping for it since the violent suppression of anti-establishment protests more than 50 days ago.
“For many, hopes that outside pressure might shift the balance dimmed when US President Donald Trump – who previously encouraged demonstrators to “keep protesting” and promised that “help is on the way” – appeared to pivot toward diplomatic engagement instead.”
Sources: BBC, The Guardian.
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