US and Iran offer conflicting accounts of nuclear discussions
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
By LARA JAKES, LEO SANDS and NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
President Donald Trump and Iranian officials sharply disagreed Tuesday about whether Iran had agreed to open its nuclear sites to U.N. inspectors, one of several disputes between the two countries that reflected the morass of details still to be resolved.
As peace talks were underway in Switzerland, a United Nations maritime agency said Tuesday that it had started an effort to free hundreds of ships and thousands of mariners that have been trapped in the Persian Gulf during the war, moving them through the Strait of Hormuz along a route near Oman’s coastline.
After Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Iran had agreed to let U.S. inspectors back into its nuclear sites, Iranian officials said Tuesday that their country did not make any such commitment. In fact, they said, the matter was barely discussed. Esmail Baghaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said there was no plan to invite inspectors to nuclear sites that were hit by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in June 2025.
“They know they’re wrong,” Trump said later in the day at an event in Pennsylvania. Earlier, he had posted on social media that Iran had “fully and completely agreed to the highest level Nuclear inspections.”
U.S. and Iranian officials staked out strong positions on other points of disagreement. Secretary of State Marco Rubio kicked off a visit to the Middle East by saying no country, including Iran, was allowed to charge fees or tolls for passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as Iran had indicated it planned to do. He also said that “you can’t have an end to hostilities and conflicts in the region” unless armed groups supported by Iran also halt their attacks.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told state media that curbs on his country’s missile capabilities would “never” be a part of a future peace agreement. “If we did not have our missiles, which are for our self-defense, Israel and America would have plowed through Iran the way they did Gaza,” he said at a news conference in Islamabad.
But Iran’s nuclear program remains the top issue for the U.S. side. If Iran had not committed to international inspections, Trump said, he would have called off the peace negotiations.
The chief of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency, Rafael Grossi, said in an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK-World published Tuesday that inspections would commence, “the sooner the better,” but he did not say whether Iran had made a specific commitment, or how much access inspectors would have.
Iran, which has long insisted its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, blocked inspectors from most of its nuclear sites after last year’s attacks by Israel and the United States.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
— Strait of Hormuz: The International Maritime Organization and the government of Oman said Tuesday that they had a plan to help hundreds of ships stuck in the Persian Gulf pass through the Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, 39 vessels went through the strait, capping the busiest three-day period since the Iran war started, but the traffic was still a fraction of what it had been before the war, according to a ship-tracking company, Kpler.
— Lebanon: An Israeli military attack in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed two people, according to Lebanon’s state news agency and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group. Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon had eased in recent days. Israel and Lebanon were also expected to hold a round of talks in Washington on Tuesday. The conflict is another significant sticking point in the U.S.-Iran negotiations.
— Diplomacy: Top U.S. and Iranian officials flew across the region to rally support in the negotiations. Rubio headed to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and its lead negotiator in the talks, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, met in Oman with its leader. And President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran met with the president and prime minister of Pakistan, a key mediator in the U.S.-Iran talks.