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GENEVA: A meeting between Iran’s foreign minister and top European diplomats on Friday yielded hopes of further talks but no indication of any immediate concrete breakthrough, a week after the crisis centered on the Iranian nuclear program erupted into war between Israel and Tehran.

Foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany, as well as the European Union’s foreign policy chief, emerged from talks at a Geneva hotel about 3 1/2 hours after Iran’s Abbas Araghchi arrived for the meeting.

It was the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials since the start of the conflict.

“The good result today is that we leave the room with the impression that the Iranian side is fundamentally ready to continue talking about all important issues,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said. He said the two sides had held “very serious talks.”

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said: “We are keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran, and we urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States.” He added that “we were clear: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

“Military operations can slow Iran’s nuclear program but in no way can they eliminate it, said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. “We know well — after having seen what happened in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Libya — how illusory and dangerous it is to want to impose regime change from outside.”

Barrot also said that European nations ”invited the Iranian minister to envisage negotiations with all parties including the United States, and without waiting for the end of the strikes.”

The French Foreign Minister explained that in discussions with Iran, Foreign Minister Araghchi agreed “to put all the issues on the table including some that weren’t there before” and “showed his disposition to continuing the conversation — that we started today — and for the Europeans to help facilitate, including with the United States.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said ”we agreed that we will discuss nuclear but also broader issues that we have, and keep the discussions open.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also addressed reporters outside the meeting venue after the talks ended. He expressed support for “a continuation of discussions with the E3 and the EU and expressed his readiness to meet again in the near future.” He also denounced Israel’s attacks against nuclear facilities in Iran and expressed “grave concern” on what he called “non-condemnation” by European nations.

US considering how to proceed

Lammy traveled to Geneva after meeting in Washington with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump’s Mideast envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Trump has been weighing whether to attack Iran by striking its well-defended Fordo uranium enrichment facility, which is buried under a mountain and widely considered to be out of reach of all but America’s “bunker-buster” bombs. He said Wednesday that he’ll decide within two weeks whether the US military will get directly involved in the war given the “substantial chance” for renewed negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Israel says it launched its airstrike campaign to stop Iran from getting closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon. Iran and the United States had been negotiating over the possibility of a new diplomatic deal over Tehran’s program, though Trump has said Israel’s campaign came after a 60-day window he set for the talks.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that “we wanted to open a discussion with the Iranian foreign minister because we believe that there is no definitive solution by military means to the Iranian nuclear problem — military operations may delay it but they can’t eliminate it.”

NEW YORK: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday that expansion of the Israel-Iran conflict could “ignite a fire no one can control” and called on both sides and potential parties to the conflict to “give peace a chance.”

The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, speaking at the same United Nations Security Council session, warned that attacks on nuclear facilities could result in the release of radiation “within and beyond boundaries” of Iran, and called for maximum restraint.

Guterres said there were “moments when the directions taken will shape not just the fate of nations, but potentially our collective future.”

“This is such a moment,” he said.

He said expansion of the conflict would “ignite a fire that no one can control” and added: “We must not let that happen.”

“To the parties to the conflict, the potential parties to the conflict, and to the Security Council as the representative of the international community, I have a simple and clear message: give peace a chance,” Guterres said.

The Security Council session took place as European foreign ministers met their Iranian counterpart on Friday hoping to test Tehran’s readiness to negotiate a new nuclear deal despite there being scant prospect of Israel ceasing its attacks soon.

Israel has repeatedly bombed nuclear targets in Iran and Iran has fired missiles and drones at Israel as a week-old air war escalated with no sign yet of an exit strategy from either side.

The White House said on Thursday US President Donald Trump would make a decision within the next two weeks whether to get involved on Israel’s side. Iran said on Friday it would not discuss the future of its nuclear program while under attack by Israel.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said his country sought genuine efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities from Friday’s meeting between European and Iranian ministers, not just another round of talks

“We have seen diplomatic talks for the last few decades, and look at the results,” he told reporters.

“If it is going to be like another session and debates, that’s not going to work.”

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, outlined Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak.

He said the level of radioactivity outside Iran’s Natanz site has remained unchanged and at normal levels, indicating no external radiological impact on the population or the environment there.

However, he said that within the facility there was both radiological and chemical contamination. He said the IAEA was not aware of any damage at Iran’s Fordow plant at this time.

An attack on Iran’s Bushehr plant would be most serious, he said: “It is an operating nuclear power plant and hosts thousands of kilograms of nuclear material.”

“I want to make it absolutely and completely clear: In the case of an attack on the Bushehr nuclear power plant, a direct hit would result in a very high release of radioactivity to the environment,” Grossi said.

“Similarly, a hit that disabled the only two lines supplying electrical power to the plant could cause its reactor’s core to melt.”

He said any action against the Tehran nuclear research reactor will also have severe consequences, “potentially for large areas of the city of Tehran and its inhabitants.”

The US ambassador to the United Nations, Dorothy Camille Shea, said the United States “continues to stand with Israel and supports its actions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

“We can no longer ignore that Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,” she said.

China and Russia demanded immediate de-escalation.

Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, said Israel’s actions risked pulling third countries into the conflict and internationalization of the conflict must be avoided.

He said targeting of what he called Iran’s peaceful civilian nuclear facilities was “liable to plunge us into a hither to unseen nuclear catastrophe.”

Iran says its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. It neither confirms nor denies this.