Iran has signalled its readiness to restart nuclear negotiations during the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon escalates.

Iran has signalled its readiness to restart nuclear negotiations during the United Nations General Assembly in New York as the conflict between Israel and Lebanon escalates.

Since the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Plan of Action under President Trump, efforts to revive the nuclear agreement have stalled and Tehran has gradually reduced its compliance with the accord due to the imposed sanctions by Washington.

However, current events in the international environment have made the process more complex than in previous efforts and whilst communication channels through intermediaries like Switzerland remain open, the Iranian regime have ruled out direct meetings with U.S. officials.

Further complicating the talks are the recent reports suggesting growing military cooperation between Iran and Russia with British and American officials raising concerns that Russia may be exchanging nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Iranian ballistic missile support in the conflict in Ukraine.

The potential sharing of sensitive nuclear information between these two states now more worrying due to Iran’s ongoing uranium enrichment efforts, which have brought the country closer to the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon.

The Iranian President has also accused Israel of attempting to provoke Iran into a larger conflict with the ongoing battle between Israel and Hezbollah having escalated significantly the past week.

As Hezbollah continue to fire missiles into Israel territory, Israels retaliatory airstrikes on Lebanon have resulted in some of the deadliest days in the country’s history, with hundreds of casualties reported and tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians leaving their homes, much in the same way as Israelis have had to evacuate large parts of its Northern territories in recent months.

Whilst publicly on Monday, Iranian President Pezeshkian repeatedly expressed a lack of desire for further war:

 “We don’t want war, want to live in peace,”

The actions of the IRGC in their support of Hezbollah and the resistance factions speak otherwise and despite the calls for peace, expansion of the conflict and greater Iranian involvement looks to be inevitable.