Trump's message to Iran on Arab tour was to ditch ideology, confrontation

The project, launched by CPAC in partnership with the United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), aims to mobilize members of the Iranian diaspora to advocate for human rights, religious freedom, and increased pressure on the Islamic Republic.

CPAC has been a key driver of grassroots support for US President Donald Trump by organizing popular conferences. UANI is an influential advocacy group whose chairman is former Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush.

“We want to get together all these great voices in the exile community and put a real pressure point on the regime in Iran,” CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp told Iran International.

“There should be great unity amongst people who believe in freedom, religious tolerance, human rights to really put pressure on Iran.”

Schlapp said CPAC is committed to helping create a “new version of the maximum pressure campaign,” referring to the Trump administration’s policy against Tehran.

In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump withdrew the United States from the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and imposed his so-called "maximum pressure" sanctions on Tehran.

The sanctions effectively reduced Iran’s oil exports to as little as 150,000 barrels per day. However, oil sales rebounded to at least 1.5 million barrels per day during the Biden administration.

In February this year, Trump reinstated the maximum pressure campaign, aiming to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero, "deny Iran all paths to a nuclear weapon, and counter Iran’s malign influence abroad."

Since early April, Iran and the US have held five rounds of negotiations mediated by Oman to resolve the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. The two sides have agreed to hold a sixth round in the near future, American officials said on Friday.

Iranian diaspora's engagement with Trump administration

UANI, which co-launched the initiative, said in a press release that the project will offer a forum for "civil and respectful debate" across the diverse Iranian diaspora.

“The group will provide direct access to policymakers, including senior Trump administration officials, and support those in the diaspora who oppose the Islamist ideology of the Ayatollahs and who support Iran’s territorial integrity," the statement added.

Jason Brodsky, the UANI's policy director, told Iran International that “CPAC for Iranians in Exile will provide the diverse Iranian diaspora with a unique platform to engage with senior Trump administration officials and US policymakers in Washington to discuss Iran policy and an Iran free from the Ayatollah.”

UANI chairman Mark Wallace also said “The Iranian people, who have suffered under the Ayatollah’s rule for 46 years, have not had a consistent platform to be heard. This initiative is an effort to change that and ensure their voices are not just heard but engaged with.”

The CPAC for Iranians in Exile website calls the platform "a defining opportunity for the Iranian people in their courageous fight to end the despotic rule of the Ayatollah and his cronies."

"All of us are committed to see the end of the Ayatollah’s totalitarian Islamist dictatorship."

CPAC for Iranians in Exile says it will be hosting its inaugural conference later this year in Washington DC with the participation of senior US administration officials and policymakers.

Responding to a query from Iran International TV on Thursday, Canada’s foreign ministry stated that Iran must undergo “significant changes to its behavior both domestically and internationally” before the restoration of diplomatic ties can be considered.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmail Baghaei on Tuesday put the onus on Canada to make the first move to restore relations.

“I think the first step they need to take is to unravel the many sanctions and restraints they have imposed on themselves and on our bilateral relations,” Baghaei told CBC News at a press briefing in Tehran on Tuesday.

In its sharply worded statement, however, Canada condemned Iran for what it called Tehran's destabilizing activities in the Middle East, proliferation of drone and ballistic missile technologies, and lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear program.

Ottawa also expressed “deep concern about Iran's failure to uphold its international human rights obligations” and said it will continue to increase pressure on Iran and implement further measures “for as long it continues its unacceptable conduct.”

Canada further called on Iran to fulfill its legal non-proliferation obligations, honor its political commitments under the nuclear agreement framework, and fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

At the same press briefing, Baghaei accused Ottawa of turning a blind eye to Israel’s actions while portraying Iran as a threat.

“Is Iran committing genocide? Has Iran occupied another country? Is Iran enjoying the full support of Canada and other Western countries to commit the colonial erasure of a whole nation?” he said.

Designation of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and sanctions

Canada has sanctioned numerous Iranian entities and individuals since 2012 for human rights violations, support for terrorism, ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the IRGC’s downing of Ukraine’s Flight PS75 in January 2020.

Ottawa officially designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) as a terrorist organization in June 2024, over a decade after designating its foreign operations branch the Quds Force as a terrorist entity.

On March 7 Canada slapped fresh sanctions on several individuals and entities in connection with the IRGC’s weapons production and sales.

Strained relations for decades

Canada’s relations with Iran took a major hit in 2003 following the death of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi in Iranian custody under suspicious circumstances.

Evidence suggested she had been tortured, but Iran rejected Canada’s demand for an independent investigation by international observers.

A turning point came in September 2012 when Canada closed its embassy in Tehran and expelled all Iranian diplomats from Ottawa.

At the time, Canada cited Iran’s support for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, its non-compliance with nuclear obligations, threats against Israel, support for terrorism, human rights violations and disregard for the safety of foreign diplomats.

The move came a few months after the 2011 vigilante attack and vandalization of the British embassy and its residential complex in Tehran in reaction to UK’s decision to impose further economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

After the 2015 election of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, there was cautious optimism about re-engagement, especially following the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). Canada eased some sanctions in alignment with the agreement.

However, hopes of rapprochement were dashed in January 2020, when the IRGC shot down Flight PS752, killing 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

Iran said it had unintentionally downed the civilian aircraft amid heightened tensions with the US following the assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani.

Canada officially banned the entry of senior Iranian government officials in November 2022, cancelling dozens of visas and visa applications. The ban was expanded in September 2024 by retroactively applying the inadmissibility to any senior official who served in the Iranian government since June 23, 2003 when Zahra Kazemi was killed in Iranian custody.

Iranian-Canadians

Baghaei also told CBC that the lack of diplomatic ties harms the hundreds of thousands of Iranians living in Canada and contributing to its economy.

In the 2021 Canadian Census, over 280,000 individuals, or around 0.8 percent of the total Canadian population, identified themselves as Iranian or Persian.

The Iranian dissident diaspora in Canada frequently organizes protests in major cities to denounce the Iranian government and the IRGC, and to express solidarity with political prisoners and pro-democracy movements in Iran.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei this week dismissed US statements forbidding Iranian enrichment, and US secretary of state Marco Rubio gave his most detailed explanation yet about Washington's opposition to Iran's domestic capacity to do so.

Iran’s participation in the fifth round of talks in Rome on Friday is solely to gauge Washington’s latest stance rather than pursue a potential breakthrough, the sources cited by CNN added.

“The media statements and negotiating behavior of the United States has widely disappointed policy-making circles in Tehran,” CNN quoted the two Iranian sources as saying in a joint message.

“From the perspective of decision-makers in Tehran, when the US knows that accepting zero enrichment in Iran is impossible and yet insists on it, it is a sign that the US is fundamentally not seeking an agreement and is using the negotiations as a tool to intensify pressure.”

They added that while some Iranian officials initially hoped for a “win-win” compromise, a consensus has since formed that the Trump administration is pushing the talks toward deadlock.

Asked by a CNN reporter about the sources' comments before publication on Thursday, US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the resumption of talks was the most important thing.

"It's gossip," she told reporters. "Some people don't have an interest in (talks' success), and that's where you get unnamed sources from.

"What is the story and what matters is that everyone is at the table in Rome."

With the current US position, the sources told CNN, the negotiations are becoming unproductive and may not continue much longer.

The sources said Tehran no longer takes seriously US efforts to distance itself from Israel’s position and believes the American proposals follow the agenda of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has demanded that Iran be barred from all uranium enrichment.

According to information obtained by Iran International, a formal directive was issued to the delegation ahead of the fifth round of indirect negotiations with the United States in Rome.

The order said any discussion of ending enrichment is off-limits, and negotiators are required to reject such proposals outright.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s televised interview, aired the night before the talks began, was part of this coordinated approach.

The appearance, organized in consultation with the Supreme National Security Council and the sanctions negotiations committee, aimed to publicly reinforce Tehran’s red lines and manage expectations over a possible failure of the Rome talks.

The messaging also sought to frame the US as responsible should the talks collapse, by emphasizing Iran’s refusal to abandon what it views as its core nuclear rights.

“The American side says enrichment must stop in Iran, and if that is their goal, there will be no agreement,” Abbas Araghchi said in an interview with state media.

“We will not give up our rights, and our nuclear program, including enrichment, must continue."

Iran insists its disputed nuclear program is peaceful and sees domestic enrichment as a right enshrined by international covenants.

Western countries and Mideast arch-nemesis Israel doubt Iran's intentions.

US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on Thursday that Washington was optimistic about the talks which are due for a fifth round in Rome on Friday because Iranian diplomats were still talking despite the hard US line on enrichment.

"The fifth round of the nuclear talks would not be happening if we didn't think that there was potential for it," Bruce told reporters on Thursday.

"Clearly we believe that we are going to succeed," she added. "Most of our leaders have who have spoken on it (have said talks are) about no enrichment, and the Iranians are (still) at that table. So they also understand what our position is, and they continue to go."

Iran prepared to respond to any Israeli strike

Addressing reports that Israel may be preparing for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, Araghchi said he had written to UN Secretary-General António Guterres warning that Iran will defend its nuclear facilities if attacked.

"If the threats continue, we will be forced to implement special arrangements to protect our nuclear facilities and materials, and those who need to understand what these special arrangements are will certainly understand," he said.

CNN reported Tuesday that US intelligence indicates Israel is preparing for potential strikes on Iranian nuclear infrastructure, citing multiple American officials.

Araghchi also said that Israel is against US negotiations with Iran and in recent months they have tried their best to drag Washington into war with Tehran.

“Whether or not the US participates in an attack alongside Israel, we see it as a partner in aggression. We do not accept the idea that Israel could act without American coordination,” he said.