In interviews with The Epoch Times, congressional Republicans said they favored the Trump administration negotiating with Iran.
The United States will hold indirect talks with Iran on April 12 despite President Donald Trump saying on April 7 that there would be direct negotiations with the regime.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), an Iran hawk, called the talks a “smart” idea.
“This is not the Obama era, where they’re looking for a deal so bad that they’re gonna get a bad deal,” he said.
The Obama administration reached a deal with Iran in 2015 in which Tehran agreed to scale back its nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief.
In 2018, Trump withdrew from the 2015 accord, reimposing sanctions and enacting new ones in what his administration dubbed a “maximum pressure” campaign.
“Trump isn’t going to get taken advantage of here. I see no problem with talks just like I saw no problem with talks with Russia,” said Crenshaw, referring to U.S. efforts to achieve a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.
“You got to try.”
Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said the onus is on Iran to agree to a deal.
“If they’re going to continue their terrorist weapon distribution around the Middle East that’s used against American lives, American ships, American troops, if you’re going to disseminate to Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, if you’re going to continue to give weapons to all of our enemies around the world, you got a problem with us. You’re my enemy,” he said.
McCormick said the United States should threaten military action against Iran if the regime does not change its behavior and that the United States needs to stand firm during negotiations with Tehran.
“We can’t treat them like friends,” he said. “Now maybe we can negotiate with them because they respect strength. But they’re not going to respect us just because we give them something.”
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) also said the talks should occur.
“You only come to peace if you can speak to somebody. We don’t want to go to war with the Iranian people,” he said.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said the United States needs to “play hardball” and make it clear to Iran that it cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Iran has stated that it is not interested in direct talks with the United States.
“Our main goal in the talks is naturally restoring rights of people as well as lifting sanctions,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Iranian state media.
“And if the other side has a real will, this is achievable, and it has no relation to the method, either direct or indirect. For the time being, indirect is our preference. And we have no plan to alter it to direct.”
“If we’re going to have talks, they need to be quick,” she told Al Arabiya.
“They need to be serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons program.”
The Biden administration held indirect talks with Iran in an effort to get the United States back into the 2015 nuclear deal. The negotiations fell apart in 2022 after more than a year.
