Chilling warning Iran won't ditch plans to become nuclear state as it 'wants power'

Iran won’t give up its ambitions to become a nuclear state despite its president pleading for talks with the US, a Middle East expert has warned.

Masoud Pezeshkian, President of Iran, said his country has “no problem” restarting nuclear talks with Donald Trump despite the US bombing its nuclear facilities last month.

But Pezeshkian, who claimed the Israelis tried to assassinate him during the recent conflict, said a condition for reentering talks would be a guarantee that Israel would not attack them without warning.

Despite appearing to strike a conciliatory tone, former French intelligence agent Claude Moniquet believes the Iranians are being disingenuous.

The Middle East expert said: “I don't think Iran is going to give up its military nuclear programme or uranium enrichment. The mullahs will try to gain time. They will pretend to give in on certain points but they will continue.

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“It is in their deepest nature and one of the lessons they have no doubt learned from the strikes is precisely that if they had had nuclear weapons, no one would have attacked them. So they will continue because they think it's the only way to keep their regime safe and stay in power forever.”

Mr Moniquet - who worked undercover as a field agent for the French foreign intelligence in the Soviet bloc, Russia, the Balkans and Middle-East for 20 years - also claimed the Iranians view Europe as irrelevant in the Middle East, regardless of French president Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to gain influence.

“If they think that Paris could prevent, slow down or limit future Israeli or American strikes, they are mistaken. France's influence in the Middle East is now close to zero and Macron certainly has no influence over Donald Trump.”

France has a long relationship with Iran’s Islamist regime and gave asylum to Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and founder of the current Islamist regime, when he lived in exile.

He later coordinated the uprising from the outskirts of Paris and returned to Tehran aboard a specially arranged Air France flight after the collapse of the pro-Western government.

Despite these ties, France and other European countries like the UK have next to no influence in the region, according to Mr Moniquet. He also attacked the French president for holding talks with Russian president Vladmir Putin about Iran recently despite repeatedly condemning him for invading Ukraine in 2022.

"For years, France's voice, which was once important in the region, no longer carries weight in the Middle East,” he said.

"France, like other European countries, is excluded from the game that is now being played between Israel, the United States, Iran and the Arab countries of the Gulf.

“Paris is desperately trying to get back into the game and is therefore playing the diplomatic card to the hilt. Even to the point of talking to Russia to find a balanced solution, given that Moscow is allied to Tehran.

“This month Emmanuel Macron telephoned Vladimir Putin for the first time since 2022 to discuss Ukraine (on which the two men have totally antagonistic positions) and Iran (on which Macron wants a "joint" approach).

“It's totally surreal, but it shows just how far France's foreign policy has fallen. Effectively, on Iran, Macron, by phoning Putin, has sided with the Beijing-Moscow-Pyongyang axis, playing into Tehran's hands. If the mullahs drank Champagne, they would have opened a bottle.”

France has a long relationship with Iran’s Islamist regime and gave asylum to Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and founder of the current Islamist regime, when he lived in exile.

He later coordinated the uprising from the outskirts of Paris and returned to Tehran aboard a specially arranged Air France flight after the collapse of the pro-Western government.