MUSCAT – Discussions between the United States and Iran about Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program will reconvene on Saturday in the secluded sultanate of Oman. Experts from both sides will delve into the technical aspects of a potential agreement.
The objective of the negotiations is to restrict Iran’s nuclear activities in return for easing some of the severe economic sanctions that the U.S. has enforced on the Islamic Republic during nearly fifty years of hostility. President Trump has threatened military strikes against Iran’s program if no agreement is reached. Iranian officials have started to hint at the possibility of pursuing nuclear weapons given their supply of uranium enriched to levels close to what is needed for weaponry.
There has been no official explanation from either Iran or the U.S. as to why the discussions will shift back to Muscat, the capital of Oman, nestled in the mountainous region of Hajar. Oman has played a mediating role between the two nations. The choice of Muscat as the location for the talks allows for a more equitable travel distance for Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, the leaders of their respective delegations.
But Rome remains in mourning after the death of Pope Francis, whose funeral will be Saturday. And Iranian state television, in covering last weekend’s talks, complained at length on air about the “paparazzi” gathered across the street from the Omani Embassy in Rome’s Camilluccia neighborhood.
“As you can see, unlike the first round of talks where the presence of journalists was limited and the Omanis had special management in place to prevent a large and chaotic media presence from disrupting the negotiations, this time in Rome, Italy, that kind of control hasn’t been applied,” said Hosnieh Sadat Shobeiri, an Iranian state TV journalist in gray, all-encompassing chador.
“Because of the crowd we’re seeing here, with media outlets from various countries — including some that are anti-Iran — it’s possible that we’ll hear more conflicting reports and news aimed at disrupting the talks coming out of Rome compared to Oman.”
Expert talks come as Iran lines up Chinese and Russian support
The Muscat talks come as Iran appears to have lined up Chinese and Russian support. Araghchi traveled to Moscow last week and this week visited Beijing.
On Thursday, Chinese, Iran and Russian representatives met the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog that likely will verify compliance with any accord like it did with Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That deal included China and Russia, as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
However, Iran has greatly restricted the IAEA’s inspections — leading to fears internationally that centrifuges and other nuclear material could be diverted.
The IAEA offered no readout from the talks, but China’s state-run Xinhua news agency on Friday described the three nations as saying the agency has “the necessary potential and expertise to contribute constructively to this process.”
“China, Russia and Iran emphasized that political and diplomatic engagement based on mutual respect remains the only viable and practical path for resolving the Iran nuclear issue,” the report said. It added that China respects Iran’s “right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”
The Trump administration has kept France, Germany and the U.K. out of its direct negotiations with Iran, something similarly reflected in Witkoff’s negotiations with Russia over ending its war on Ukraine.
Araghchi meanwhile has said he’s open to visiting Berlin, London and Paris to discuss the negotiations.
“The ball is now in the E3’s court,” Araghchi wrote on the social platform X on Thursday, using an acronym for the countries. “They have an opportunity to do away with the grip of Special Interest groups and forge a different path. How we act at this critical junction is likely to define the foreseeable future.”
U.S. hardens its stance on enrichment
The U.S. technical team was expected to arrive in Oman on Friday ahead of the talks Saturday. They’ll be led by Michael Anton, the director of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s policy planning staff. Anton does not have the nuclear policy experience of those who led America’s efforts in the 2015 talks. However, he was an early supporter of Trump, describing the 2016 election as a “charge the cockpit or you die” vote.
“A Hillary Clinton presidency is Russian Roulette with a semi-auto,” Anton wrote. “With Trump, at least you can spin the cylinder and take your chances.”
He also criticized “Iran sycophancy” in the same essay.
Rubio, speaking on a podcast released this week, also kept up a Trump line that Iran needed to stop its enrichment of uranium entirely.
“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries can have one, and that is they import enriched material,” Rubio said.
But Iran has insisted that keeping its enrichment is key. Witkoff also has muddied the issue by first suggesting in a television interview that Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, then later saying that all enrichment must stop.
Meanwhile, one more wildcard is Israel, whose devastating war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip grinds on. Trump initially announced the Iran talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. But Israel, which for years has targeted Iran’s nuclear program with attacks on its facilities and scientists, has kept open the possibility of airstrikes to destroy Tehran’s enrichment sites.
On Monday, Israel’s military conducted drills preparing for possible new Iranian missile attacks, the country’s public broadcaster KAN reported.
“Our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response,” Araghchi wrote Wednesday on X.
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