European officials hold talks with Iran in Geneva, seeking a diplomatic solution

PARIS — Foreign ministers from the United Kingdom, France and Germany are scheduled to meet with their Iranian counterpart in Geneva Friday, marking the most significant known diplomatic talks between Tehran and Western governments since Israel launched a surprise offensive against Iran one week ago.

The talks revive the European trio known as the “E3,” which led previous negotiations with Iran in the early 2000s and helped broker the 2015 nuclear deal under former President Barack Obama’s administration.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy called the situation “perilous” after meeting Thursday with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.

“A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution,” Lammy said, referencing President Trump’s announcement that he would make a decision on whether the U.S. will strike Iran by early July.

Trump’s statement, read out loud by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday, tamped down speculation that the U.S. was poised to assist Israel in its offensive by striking an Iranian nuclear facility.

Lammy and his French and German counterparts are urging Iran to return to nuclear negotiations. Iran, for its part, has signaled resistance while under attack.

“We do not want to negotiate with anyone while the Zionist regime’s aggression continues,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on state television Friday. He accused the U.S. of being complicit in Israeli strikes, citing social media posts from Trump earlier this week in which he appeared to give the U.S. partial credit for control of Iran’s airspace.

“The demand for an end to this war has already begun,” Araghchi added. “It shows how effective the resistance of the Iranian people has been and will be.”

In France, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot defended his country’s neutral stance, saying on national television Thursday that “France is always on the side of international law” and “has not participated in any preventive war.” He noted that 1,000 French nationals remain in Iran.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, meanwhile, said Berlin was open to further discussions with Iran if there is a “serious willingness” from Tehran to provide assurances on its nuclear and missile programs.

Those assurances, according to Wadephul, would mean Iran renouncing enrichment of nuclear material that would lead to weaponization and would also include reducing its missile program.

Israel and Iran traded more strikes overnight into Friday, with the Israeli military saying it struck dozens of Iranian military targets around Tehran and western Iran.

In Israel, at least five people were injured after an Iranian missile struck a residential building in the southern city of Beersheba. The strike comes just a day after an Iranian missile hit Soroka Medical Center, the largest hospital in southern Israel.

At least 24 people have been killed by Iranian missile and drone strikes and hundreds more injured since the start of the war, according to the Israeli prime minister’s office.

Israel’s strikes on Iran have killed more than 200 people, according to Iran’s Health Ministry. But an independent group called the Human Rights Activists News Agency says it has recorded 657 killed and more than 2,000 injured in Iran based on nongovernmental sources.

NPR’s Rob Schmitz contributed reporting from Berlin.