Iranian state media reported on Tuesday that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will meet with Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff in Muscat, the capital of Oman, on Saturday.
Araghchi confirmed there would be “indirect high-level talks” in Oman but did not indicate he would participate in them. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump insisted the discussion would qualify as “direct talks with Iran.”
The question of whether Iran would negotiate with the Trump administration at all, and just how “direct” such talks might be if they occurred, has been hotly debated by Iranian officials and in state media outlets in recent weeks.
In February, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted there would be no talks at all because negotiating with the Trump administration would be “neither rational, nor intelligent, nor honorable.”
Trump said in early March that he had written a letter to Tehran calling for negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded later that month by rejecting the call for direct talks, though he said indirect negotiations remained possible.
“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far. They must prove that they can build trust,” Pezeshkian said during a televised cabinet meeting.
Iran has suffered a few setbacks since then, including Trump inflicting so much damage on its Houthi terrorist proxies in Yemen that the Iranians are apparently pulling their military personnel out of the country and leaving the Houthis to their fate. Tehran’s position on negotiating with the United States appears to have softened commensurate with its losses.
There is still a considerable variance between what Washington and Tehran are saying about the upcoming meeting.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started,” President Trump said on Monday, indicating those discussions would occur at “almost the highest level.”
“It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen. And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable,” he said.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it’ll be a very bad day for Iran,” Trump warned.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a Tuesday X post that Iran and the U.S. “will meet in Oman on Saturday for indirect high-level talks.”
“It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court,” he asserted.
Araghchi characterized the upcoming dialogue as “indirect,” which would imply the meeting is to be conducted between lower-level intermediaries. But on Tuesday a state media outlet called the Islamic Republic of Iran News Network claimed Araghchi would be in Oman for the summit. The Iranian state network also said the discussions would be mediated by the foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi.
A larger Iranian state network run by regime hardliners, Tasnim, seconded the report that Araghchi will be involved in the Oman meeting this weekend and said he would speak directly with U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff.
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