Dubai: Iran and mission experts agreed on Saturday to start building a framework for a potential nuclear deal, with Iranian Foreign Minister conducting a second round of negotiations after a second round of Donald Trump’s threat to military operations.
At the second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Secretary Abbas Araqchi held nearly four hours of negotiations in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who shuttled information between them through Omani officials.
Trump, who abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the world’s major powers in his first term in 2018, threatened to attack Iran unless Iran quickly reached a new deal to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
Iran said its nuclear program was peaceful and he was willing to discuss the curbs for its limited atomic work in exchange for increased restrictions on international sanctions.
Speaking on state television after the talks, Araqchi described it as useful and in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on many principles and goals and eventually gain a better understanding,” he said.
“People agree that the negotiations will continue and move to the next phase, where the expert meeting will begin on Wednesday in Oman. Experts will have the opportunity to start designing the framework for the agreement.”
He added that the top negotiators will meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the work of experts and evaluate how consistent it is with the principles of the potential agreement.”
His cautious comments to supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week, adding: “We can’t say for sure that we are optimistic. We act very cautiously. There is no reason to be too pessimistic.”
The United States did not immediately comment after the conversation. “I’m very simply stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons. They can’t have nuclear weapons. I want Iran to be great, prosperous and great,” Trump told reporters on Friday.
According to Israeli officials and others familiar with the matter, Washington’s ally Israel opposes the 2015 agreement that Trump abandoned in 2018, which did not rule out attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months.
Since 2019, Iran has violated 2015 restrictions on uranium enrichment, far exceeding stocks far more than what the West calls a necessary for civilian energy plan.
Senior Iranian officials described Iran’s negotiating stance on Friday, anonymously, and listed its red line, never agreed to remove its uranium-rich centrifuge, completely stopping enrichment or reducing its abundant uranium stockpile below agreed levels in the 2015 deal.
