Neither Iran nor US is interested in igniting new conflict in Middle East, orientalist says

Speaking with Alpha News, Irina Fedorova, a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of the Middle and Near East Countries at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented on US President Donald Trump’s threats against Iran.

“The US is putting pressure on Tehran to conclude a new deal on terms more favorable to them than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program. The pressure is being exerted through various channels, including military ones. Iran was given a two-month deadline a month ago, which is set to expire around mid-May. If Iran does not agree to the conditions, then military action will begin. Now Trump’s latest statement indicates that negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program will begin in Oman on Saturday.

Trump believes these will be direct negotiations, that is, between representatives of the United States and Iran. Iran, in turn, represented by the Iranian Foreign Minister, claims that the negotiations will not be direct, that is, they will be through Omani mediators. Only if the first round of contacts yields successful results will direct negotiations between Iranian and U.S. representatives be possible,” Fedorova said.

According to the orientalist, neither side is interested in triggering a new conflict in the Middle East.

“In this situation, we see that Iran is primarily not interested in military action and a direct military conflict with the United States and Israel and is doing everything to ensure that such a turn of events, I mean the outbreak of a new war, does not happen. For this purpose, negotiations are currently underway in Moscow involving representatives from China, Iran, and Russia—two leading powers of the UN Security Council—alongside Iran to address the Iranian nuclear program.

That is, I believe that certain agreements are being discussed to resolve this issue through peaceful diplomatic means. The likelihood of large-scale military action, in my opinion, is very low, as neither Iran nor the United States is genuinely interested in igniting a new conflict in the Middle East,” Fedorova concluded.