The Blubber

The quake, which Iran’s Tasnim news agency says measured 5.2, struck at a depth of 10 kilometers (six miles) some 37 kilometers (23 miles) southwest of the city of Semnan, the USGS says.

Tehran is willing to “consider diplomacy” once Israel halts its aggression and is held accountable, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said after meeting with European officials to discuss Iran’s nuclear program.

“Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again—once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed,” Araghchi told reporters at a hotel in Geneva, following talks with representatives from Britain, France, Germany, and the European Union. “We support the continuation of discussions with our European counterparts and express our readiness to meet again in the near future.”

However, European powers urged Iran not to wait for Israeli airstrikes to end before engaging in nuclear negotiations. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said, “We invited the Iranian minister to consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes, which we also hope for.”

Barrot also emphasized that foreign-imposed regime change was not a viable solution: “It is illusory and dangerous to want to impose a regime change from the outside. It is up to the people to decide their own destiny,” he said, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to rule out the possibility of targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.