Iran, the United States holds talks on Tehran’s nuclear program as tensions in the Middle East are intensifying
Iran and the United States held talks in Oman on Saturday to inspire negotiations on Tehran’s rapid nuclear development plan, and if no agreement is reached, U.S. President Donald Trump threatens military action.
Foreign Secretary Abbas Araghchi leads the Iranian delegation, while Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff leads the United States. The negotiations were the first negotiations between Iran and the Trump administration, including his first term in 2017-21.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei posted on X: “With mediation by Oman’s Foreign Minister, indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States have begun.”
Bahá’i said each delegation had its own separate room and would exchange information through the Omanian Foreign Minister.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry then issued a statement saying that the “indirect negotiations” lasted for two and a half hours, and the two sides agreed that negotiations will continue next week.
At the end of Saturday’s talks, the ministry said the heads of Iran and the U.S. delegations talked for several minutes while Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi was present.
U.S. and Iran are ready to start direct negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program, warning that if the negotiations are not successful, Iran will be in great danger. “But, a senior Iranian official said any negotiations were indirect, with Oman acting as the intermediary.
Targeted to eliminate regional tensions
“The current focus of negotiations will be on demoting regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and limited agreements to mitigate sanctions [against Iran] In exchange for a nuclear program to control Iran,” Omani sources told Reuters.
Baghaei denied the account, but did not specify what was wrong.
Oman has long been a intermediary between the Western powers and Iran, contributing to the release of several foreign citizens and dual citizens held by the Islamic Republic.
Threat explosion nuclear program
Tehran has held cautiously to negotiate that they can create a deal and doubt about Trump, who repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it does not stop its escalating uranium enrichment program – a possible pathway for the West to be seen as a nuclear weapon.
Although both sides are talking about some opportunities for progress, they have kept their distance from the dispute that has lasted for twenty years. Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons, but Western countries and Israel believe it has secretly tried to develop means to build atomic bombs.
Currently, as Iran seeks, not face to face, Saturday’s exchange is indirect, as Trump asks.
Iranian state media reported that before the negotiations, Aragic met with Oman’s foreign minister in the capital Muscat to raise Tehran’s “key points and positions to be transferred to the United States.”
There is no news in the conversations on the US side.
The war in Gaza and Lebanon, missile fires between Iran and Israel, Houthi’s shipping on the Red Sea and the government attacks overthrowing Syria since 2023, signs of progress may help to help ease tensions in an exaggerated area.
But failures will heighten concerns about wider fires in many parts of the world’s oil exports. Tehran warned that if we were involved in any U.S. military attack on Iran, they would face “severe consequences” and they would face “severe consequences.”
“If the other party is likely to have a preliminary understanding of further negotiations [U.S.] Enter the talks on an equal footing. ” Aragic told Iranian TV.
An Iranian official told Reuters that the final decision on key state affairs by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave Araghchi “full authority.”
The ballistic missile plan will not be discussed
Iran has ruled out negotiations on its defense capabilities, such as its ballistic missile program.
Western countries say Iran’s abundance of nuclear fuel-source uranium far exceeds the requirements of civilian energy programs and produces inventory at the level of fission purity in elastic warheads.
Trump has resumed Tehran’s “maximum pressure” campaign since February, abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers during his first term and reintroduced serious sanctions on the Islamic Republic in serious sanctions.
Nuclear plan has been improved
Since then, Iran’s nuclear program has begun to develop, including enriching uranium to fission purity of 60%, a technical step at the level required by the bomb.
Israel, Washington’s closest Middle East ally, sees Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and has long threatened to attack Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Tehran’s influence throughout the Middle East has been severely weakened over the past 18 months, with its regional allies (known as the “Axis of Resistance”) being demolished or seriously damaged since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel War in Gaza and its fall in Syria in December.
