- President Trump is confident that a new Iran nuclear agreement is possible.
- Tehran, Washington celebrates the third round of conversations in Muscat.
- Omar FM says that conversations will continue next week.
Muscat: Iran and the United States have agreed to continue the nuclear conversations next week, both parties said on Saturday, although Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said “Poor cautious” about the success of the negotiations to resolve a confrontation of decades long.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has pointed out the confidence in ensuring a new pact with the Islamic Republic that would block Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb.
The envoy of Araqchi and the Middle East of Trump, Steve Witkoff, celebrated a third round of the conversations in Muscat through Omani mediators for about six hours, a week after a second round in Rome that both parties described as constructive.
“The negotiations are extremely serious and technical … there are still differences, both in important issues and in details,” Araqchi told Iranian State TV.
“There is seriousness and determination on both sides … However, our optimism about the success of conversations remains extremely cautious.”
A senior official of the United States administration described the conversations and positive and productive, added that both parties agreed to meet again in Europe “soon.” “There is still much to do, but progress was made to reach an agreement,” added the official.
Previously, Omaní Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi had said that the conversations would continue next week, with another “high -level meeting” provisionally scheduled for May 3. Araqchi said Oman would announce the place.
Before the meeting of main negotiators, indirect conversations at the expert level took place in Muscat to design a framework for a possible nuclear agreement.
“The presence of experts was beneficial … we will return to our capitals to see additional reviews to see how disagreements can be reduced,” Araqchi said.
An Iranian official reported about the conversations, he told Reuters previously that the expert level negotiations were “difficult, complicated and serious.”
The only objective of these conversations, said Araqchi, was “to generate confidence about the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the relief of sanctions.”
Trump, in an interview with Time magazine published on Friday, said “I think we are going to make an agreement with Iran”, but repeated a threat of military action against Iran if diplomacy fails.
Shortly after Araqchi and Witkoff began their last indirect conversations on Saturday, Iranian state media reported a massive explosion in the country Shahid Rajaee of the country near the southern city of Bandar Abbas, killing at least four people and hurting hundreds.
Maximum pressure
While both Tehran and Washington have said they are destined to seek diplomacy, they remain very separate in a dispute that has rumbled for more than two decades.
Trump, who has restored a “maximum pressure” campaign in Tehran since February, abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and six world powers in 2018 during his first term and reimpose paralyzing sanctions against Iran.
Since 2019, Iran has violated the nuclear curbs of the pact, including “dramatically” acceleration of its enrichment from uranium to up to 60% purity, close to the level of approximately 90% that is of a degree of weapons, according to the UN nuclear guard dog.
The Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio, said this week that Iran would have to stop completely enriching uranium under an agreement and importing any enriched uranium that he needed to feed his only atomic energy plant that works, Bushehr.
Tehran is willing to negotiate some curbs in its nuclear work in exchange for the lifting of sanctions, according to Iranian officials, but finish their enrichment program or deliver their enriched uranium reserve are among the “red lines of Iran that could not commit” in conversations.
In addition, European states have suggested to US negotiators that an integral agreement should include limits that prevent them from acquiring or ends the ability to put a nuclear eye on a ballistic missile, several European diplomats said.
Tehran insists on their defense capabilities, as their missile program, and are not negotiable.
An Iranian official with knowledge of the conversations said on Friday that Tehran sees his missile program as a major obstacle in conversations.
