Fresh talks between Iranian and US negotiators to resolve disputes over Tehran’s nuclear programme ended in Oman yesterday with further negotiations planned, officials said, as Tehran publicly insisted on continuing its uranium enrichment.
Though Tehran and Washington both have said they prefer diplomacy to resolve the decades-long nuclear dispute, they remain deeply divided on several red lines that negotiators will have to circumvent to reach a new nuclear deal and avert future military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held the fourth round of talks in Muscat through Omani mediators, despite Washington taking a tough stance in public that Iranian officials said would not help the negotiations.
Araqchi said the talks were ‘more serious and more straightforward compared to the previous three rounds’.
“We now understand each other better and hope to make further progress moving forward... Iran’s uranium enrichment must continue, although its scope and level may change,” Araqchi told state TV.
A senior official from President Donald Trump’s administration said yesterday’s ‘direct and indirect’ discussions had lasted more than three hours.
“We are encouraged by today’s outcome and look forward to our next meeting, which will happen in the near future,” the official said.
On Thursday, Witkoff told Breitbart News that Washington’s red line is: ‘No enrichment. That means dismantlement, no weaponisation,’ requiring the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.
But Araqchi said ‘there is absolutely no room for compromise on uranium enrichment’ on Iran’s soil.
“Its dimensions, scale, level, or amount might be subject to certain limitations – for confidence-building purposes, for instance – as was done in the past, but the principle of enrichment itself is simply not negotiable,” he said after the talks.
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