Iranian minister to have ‘indirect talks’ with US envoy over nuclear programme

Iran’s foreign minister has said he will meet US envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman for the first negotiations under the Trump administration seeking to halt Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme as tensions remain high in the Middle East.

Speaking to Iranian state television from Algeria, Abbas Araghchi maintained the talks would be indirect, likely with Omani mediators shuttling between the two parties.

US President Donald Trump, in announcing the negotiations on Monday, described them as being direct talks.

Years of indirect talks under the Biden administration failed to reach any success, as Tehran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity — a technical step away from weapons-grade levels.

Both the US and Israel have threatened Iran with military attack over the programme, while officials in Tehran increasingly warn they could potentially pursue a nuclear bomb.

“Our main goal in the talks, is naturally restoring rights of people as well as lifting sanctions and if the other side has a real will, this is achievable, and it has no relation to the method, either direct or indirect,” Mr Araghchi said.

“For the time being, indirect is our preference. And we have no plan to alter it to direct.”

The Washington Post later published an opinion piece from Mr Araghchi in which he maintained that “Iran is ready to engage in earnest and with a view to seal a deal.”

“Pursuing indirect negotiations is not a tactic or reflection of ideology but a strategic choice rooted in experience,” he added.

“To move forward today, we first need to agree that there can be no ‘military option,’ let alone a ‘military solution’.”

There was no immediate acknowledgement from the US that Mr Witkoff would lead the US delegation.

After Mr Trump’s comments on the talks went public, Iran’s ailing economy suddenly showed new signs of life.

Its rial currency, which hit a record low of more than one million rials to the dollar, rebounded on Tuesday to 990,000 rials. The Tehran Stock Exchange separately rose some 2% on the news.

Iran’s economy has been severely affected by international sanctions, particularly after Mr Trump unilaterally withdrew America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

At the time of the 2015 deal, which saw Iran drastically limit its enrichment and stockpiling of uranium in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions, the rial traded at 32,000 to the dollar.

Economic upheavals have evaporated the public’s savings, pushing average Iranians into holding onto hard currencies, gold, cars and other tangible wealth.

The negotiations on Saturday come after Mr Trump wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, trying to jumpstart direct talks between Tehran and Washington.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video reiterating his claim that only a deal like one struck with the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi would work for Iran.

It saw Gadhafi give up his clandestine nuclear programme.

Iran has insisted its programme, acknowledged to the International Atomic Energy Agency, should continue.

“We agree that Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” said Mr Netanyahu, who was sitting next to Mr Trump when he announced the talks.

“This can be done in an agreement, but only if this agreement is on the Libyan model, where you go in, blow up the facilities, dismantle all the equipment, under American supervision, American execution.”

He added: “The second option is that this won’t happen, that they will just drag out the talks, and then the option is military. Everyone understands that. We discussed that at length.”

Meanwhile, asked about Mr Trump’s mention of planned direct talks between the US and Iran, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow welcomes them, adding that “we support settling the issue of the Iranian nuclear dossier by political and diplomatic means”.

Mr Peskov added in a conference call with reporters: “We are aware that certain contacts, both direct and indirect, are planned in Oman and we can only welcome them as they could lead to the de-escalation of tensions around Iran.”

His remarks come as Mr Trump is trying to negotiate a separate peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, talks that also have happened in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia.

An expert-level meeting among representatives from Russia, China and Iran was to take place in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme, according to Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump is continuing an intense air strike campaign targeting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, the last force in Tehran’s self-described “axis of resistance” able to attack Israel after other militant groups were mauled by Israel during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.