KANANASKIS, ALBERTA – JUNE 16: U.S. President Donald Trump walks out to talk to reporters at the G7 Leaders’ Summit on June 16, 2025 in Kananaskis, Alberta.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Top U.K., France and Germany diplomats are pushing for 11th-hour diplomacy with Iran in Geneva on Friday, as Washington weighs the possibility of joining Israel’s military campaign against Tehran over the next two weeks.
Iran and Israel have been trading fire for the past week, in the latest climax of tensions that have been simmering since Tehran-backed Hamas’ terrorist attack against the Jewish state in October 2023. Israel has since been fighting a war on multiple fronts against the Palestinian militant group and other Iranian proxies, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi — which Tehran says are acting independently.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said Friday that his country would “not stop” its attacks, “until Iran’s nuclear threat is dismantled,” Reuters reports.
The conflict has risked further escalation since the start of the week, amid signals that the U.S. — historically a close ally and weapons supplier of Israel — could intervene militarily against Tehran.
“Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,” U.S. President Donald Trump said, according to a statement read out on Thursday by White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.
Following a Thursday meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff, U.K. Foreign Minister David Lammy said that the three “discussed how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict” and that “a window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.”
“There is no room for negotiations with the U.S. until Israeli aggression stops,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is expected to attend talks in Geneva, was quoted as saying on Iranian state TV on Friday, according to Reuters.
Trump’s aversion to Iran’s nuclear program has been a central point of his statesmanship across both mandates. The White House leader pulled the U.S. out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, during his first presidency, tightening the noose on Iran’s coffers through a string of stringent financial and oil-linked sanctions.
Self-proclaimed “peacemaker” Trump has so far fruitlessly pursued a second nuclear program deal since the start of his second term, initially expressing a preference for a diplomatic breakthrough — the likes of which European officials are now hoping to strike.
“In the United States, [there are] many political officials who are convinced that we must not once more make the errors of the past. What we saw in Libya, what we saw in Afghanistan, what we saw in Iraq, we do not want to see reproduced,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said in a TV interview with French media, according to a CNBC translation.
Notably, the U.K., France and Germany — alongside Iran’s allies Russia and China — were previously involved in the JCPOA with Washington and Tehran.
France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot, Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, pose for photographs in the offices of the honorary Consul of the Federal Republic of Germany in Geneva, Switzerland June 20, 2025, during a meeting of European Foreign Ministers, as European countries call for de-escalation of tensions after Israeli bombings aimed at breaking the Iranian nuclear programme.
Fabrice Coffrini | Reuters
Markets have been rattled by the possibility of the conflict destabilizing the wider oil-rich Middle East and potentially drawing in the world’s largest economy, spurring investors on a flight to safe-haven assets and broader focus on defense companies and initiatives.
In a further sign of the escalating tensions — both in Israel and Iran, and in the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled concern Friday about the possibility of the world heading toward World War III.
“It is disturbing,” Putin said, when asked about if he is concerned about the possibility, per Reuters.
“I am speaking without any irony, without any jokes. Of course, there is a lot of conflict potential, it is growing, and it is right under our noses, and it affects us directly,” he said at an economic forum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
