The high-stakes talks between Iran and the United States are targeted on de-escalating regional tensions, prisoner exchanges and restricted agreements to ease sanctions in change for controlling Iran’s nuclear programme, an Omani supply instructed Reuters on Saturday.
Iran and the United States started high-level talks within the sultane of Oman on Saturday, aiming to jump-start negotiations over Tehran’s quickly advancing nuclear program, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening navy motion if there isn’t any deal.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was main Iran’s delegation whereas the talks on the U.S. aspect – the primary throughout Trump’s tenure within the White House – have been being dealt with by his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
“Indirect talks between Iran and the United States with the mediation of the Omani foreign minister have started,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei posted on X.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency stated the environment of talks was “positive”.
Iran is approaching the talks warily, skeptical that they may result in a deal and suspicious of Trump, who has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if it doesn’t halt its nuclear program.
While both sides has talked up the possibilities of some progress, they continue to be far aside on a dispute that has rumbled on for greater than 20 years and haven’t agreed on whether or not the talks will probably be face-to-face, as Trump calls for, or oblique, as Iran desires.
Signs of motion may assist cool tensions in a area aflame since 2023 with Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon, missile hearth between Iran and Israel, Houthi assaults on Red Sea transport and the overthrow of the Iran-backed Assad regime in Syria.
However, failure would irritate fears of a wider conflagration throughout a area that exports a lot of the world’s oil. Tehran has cautioned neighboring nations which have U.S. bases that they might face “severe consequences” in the event that they have been concerned in any U.S. navy assault on Iran.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who within the Islamic Republic’s advanced energy construction has the ultimate say on key state issues, has given Araqchi “full authority” for the talks, an Iranian official instructed Reuters.
“The duration of the talks, that will only be about the nuclear issue, will depend on the U.S. side’s seriousness and goodwill,” stated the official, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of sensitivity of the matter.
Iran has dominated out negotiating its protection capabilities resembling its missile program.
Decades-long dispute
Iran has at all times maintained its nuclear program is meant for purely civilian functions however Western nations consider it desires to construct an atomic bomb.
They say Iran’s enrichment of uranium, a nuclear gas supply, has gone far past the necessities of a civilian program and has produced shares at a degree of fissile purity near these required in warheads.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” marketing campaign on Tehran since February, ditched a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and 6 world powers in 2018 throughout his first time period, reimposing crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Since then, Iran’s nuclear program has leaped ahead, together with by enriching uranium to 60%, a technical step from the degrees wanted for a bomb.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Thursday he hoped that the talks would result in peace, including that “We’ve been very clear what Iran is never going to have a nuclear weapon, and I think that’s what led to this meeting.”
Tehran responded the next day, saying it was giving the United States a “genuine chance” regardless of what it referred to as Washington’s “prevailing confrontational hoopla”.
Washington’s ally Israel, which regards Iran’s nuclear program as an existential risk, has lengthy threatened to assault Iran if diplomacy fails to curb its nuclear ambitions.
Tehran’s affect all through the Middle East has been severely curbed, with its regional allies – often called the “Axis of Resistance” – both dismantled or badly harm because the begin of the Israel’s conflict on Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and the autumn of Bashar Assad in Syria in December.
The Axis contains not solely Hamas but in addition Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and numerous Shi’ite armed teams in Iraq and Syria.
Source: www.dailysabah.com