Iran and the United States performed talks in Oman on Saturday to start negotiations on Tehrans quickly prevailing nuclear program, with US President Donald Trump threatening military measures if there is no deal.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi led the delegation of Iran, while Trump envoys the Middle East Steve Witkoff led the US side. The talks were the first between Iran and a Trump government, including its first term in 2017-21.
“The indirect discussions between Iran and the United States started to impart the Omani Foreign Minister,” published the spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Esmail Baghaei on X.
Each delegation had its separate space and would exchange news about the foreign minister of Oman, said Baghaei.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs later published an explanation in which the “indirect conversations” lasted more than two and a half hours, and the two parties agreed that the negotiations would last next week.
At the end of the lectures on Saturday, the ministry said that the heads of the Iranian and American delegations had a few minutes in the presence of the Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Buidi when they left the conversations.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the United States and Iran were ready to start direct discussions about Tehran’s nuclear program. However, a high -ranking Iranian official said that negotiations were indirectly, with Oman acting as an intermediary.
Aim to de -escalate regional tensions
“The current focus of the talks will be on regional tensions, prison exchanges and limited agreements to relieve sanctions (against Iran) in exchange for the control of the Iranian nuclear program,” said a source from Omani to Reuters.
Baghaei denied this report, but did not state what was wrong.
Oman has long been a mediator between western powers and Iran, after he has conveyed the release of several foreign citizens and double nationals from the Islamic Republic.
Threatened bomb attacks compared to the nuclear program
Tehran carefully turned to the conversations, skeptical, they could make a deal and suspicious towards Trump, who repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it does not comply with its escalating uranium enrichment program – from the West as a possible way to nuclear weapons.
While each page has spoken about the chances of some progress, they remain far apart in a dispute that has been crazy for more than two decades. Iran has long contested the search for nuclear weapons, but western countries and Israel believe that it is trying to develop the means of building an atomic bomb.
At the moment it seemed on Saturday that the exchange on Saturday would only be indirectly, as Iran, as required, was looking for more face to face.
Before the talks, Araghchi met with the Foreign Minister of Oman in the capital Muscat to “” important points and positions that are to be transferred to the US side, “reported the Iranian state media.
There was no word in the talks of the United States yet.
Signs of progress have been able to contribute to this in a region near wars in Gaza and Lebanon, rocket fire between Iran and Israel, Houthi attacks on shipping shipping and the fall of the government in Syria.
However, the failure would worsen the fears of a broader fire in a region in which a large part of the world oil is exported. Tehran has warned the neighboring countries that have the US bases that they would have “serious consequences” if they were involved in a US military attack on Iran.
“It is possible that further negotiations are an initial understanding of the negotiations if the other party (US) enters the talks with the same attitude,” Araghchi told Iranian television.
The highest leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word about important state affairs, gave Araghchi “full authority” for the talks, said an Iranian official in Reuters.
Ballistic rocket program not for discussion
Iran has ruled out to negotiate its defense skills such as its ballistic rocket program.
According to the western nations, the Iranian enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel source, has gone far beyond the requirements of a civil energy program and has produced shares to a degree of fissile purity that almost gave away the needs required in the explosive heads.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran since February, dropped a nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers during his first term in 2018 and resumed paralysis against the Islamic Republic.
Nuclear program has progressed
Since then, the Iranian nuclear program has jumped forward, including the enrichment from uranium to 60 percent fissile, a technical step out of the level required for a bomb.
Israel, Washington’s closest ally in the Middle East, sees Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat and has long threatened to attack Iran if diplomacy cannot contaminate its nuclear ambitions.
Tehran’s influence in the Middle East has been severely weakened in the past 18 months, with its regional allies reduced as the “axis of resistance” entertainment or since the beginning of the Hamas Israel War in Gaza and the case of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in Syria.
