Updated June 20, 2025 at 9:29 AM CDT
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 then-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.
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A person familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, told NPR that Israeli officials believe Israel can destroy Iran's most fortified nuclear site Fordo on its own — without the U.S. bombing it, but that it would be quicker if the U.S. takes part.
Middle East experts tell NPR that U.S. bunker-busting bombs would do serious damage to the Fordo site, but that does not destroy Iran's know-how to build nuclear weapons in the future.
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 is skeptical of the talks
Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, cast doubt on the talks in Geneva. "We have seen diplomatic talks for the last few decades and look at the results," he told reporters on Friday in New York.
"If there will be a genuine effort to dismantle the [nuclear arm] capabilities of Iran, then that's something we can consider. But it is going to be like another session and debates. That's not going to work," he added.
He said a session Friday of the U.N. Security Council, called at Iran's request, Friday, would be absurd.
Speaking to the Security Council, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres urged the body to act to prevent a wider war and return to diplomacy.
"The expansion of this conflict could ignite a fire that no one can control," Guterres said. "Let us act — responsibly and together — to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink."
Fighting continues
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 and Daniel Estrin contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.
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