REUTERS, Paris

In a bid to defuse the conflict over Iran’s nuclear program, foreign ministers from Europe’s top three powers hurried to meet their Iranian counterpart on Friday in Geneva.

Those hopes collapsed on Saturday when US President Donald Trump ordered airstrikes on Iran’s three main nuclear sites, in support of Israel’s military campaign.

“It’s irrelevant to ask Iran to return to diplomacy,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, visibly angry, told reporters in Istanbul on Sunday, promising a “response” to the US strikes. “It’s not time for diplomacy now.”

Trump, who said the US airstrikes “obliterated” the sites, warned in a televised speech on Saturday the US could attack other targets in Iran if no peace deal was reached and urged Tehran to return to the negotiating table.

Reuters spoke to seven Western diplomats and analysts who said the prospect of negotiations was negligeable for now, with an unbridgeable gap between Washington’s demand for zero enrichment by Iran and Tehran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear program.

“I think the prospects of effective diplomacy at this point are slim to none,” said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank headquartered in Washington. “I’m much more worried about escalation, both in the short and the long term.”

According to European diplomats, the three European allies - Britain, France and Germany - were not made aware of Trump’s decision to strike Iran ahead of time.