Iran and the United States on Sunday in Muscat, Oman, began a fourth round of talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program, hoping to make progress on a key goal for both President Trump and Iran’s leadership.
Both countries have said they want to resolve the decades-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities through diplomacy, with Tehran exchanging limits on its nuclear program for the lifting of some U.S. sanctions. But the two sides remain far apart on several critical issues.
The talks are being held by Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, through Omani mediators. Mr. Witkoff has spoken uncompromisingly about Washington’s position in recent days, saying that the Trump administration aims to completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear facilities.
But, in remarks published by Iranian state media on Sunday, Mr. Araghchi said that Iran would not accept such conditions. While it was “completely achievable” for Iran to commit to not pursuing nuclear weapons, he said, its peaceful nuclear activities were “not even negotiable or tradable.”
The latest round of negotiations comes as Mr. Trump prepares to travel to the Middle East this week. He has threatened military action against Iran if the talks fail.
What happened in previous talks?
In the most recent round of talks, on April 26, Mr. Witkoff met with Mr. Araghchi, as well as with teams of technical experts from both sides, in the Gulf sultanate of Oman for several hours of negotiations.
Mr. Araghchi told Iran’s state television at the time that the talks were “very serious and productive,” and focused on details of a potential agreement. He said that disagreements remained between Tehran and Washington, but that he was “cautiously optimistic that we can progress.”
“We moved away from some of the larger issues, but it doesn’t mean we have resolved all our differences,” Mr. Araghchi added.
The talks included the nuts-and-bolts “expert talks,” which brought together nuclear and financial teams from both sides to hash out technical details, such as the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities and what would happen to its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, along with easing sanctions.
Mr. Trump has defined the objective of the negotiations as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But officials in his administration have sent mixed messages about their ultimate objectives.
A narrower goal of preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon would not address other concerns about Iran’s advanced missile program, its support of proxy militias around the Middle East and its hostility to Israel.
An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Esmail Baghai, has said that the issue of the country’s defense and missile abilities had “not been and will not be raised in indirect negotiations with the United States.”
Earlier talks took place in Oman and in Rome.
What’s at stake?
The talks have the potential to reshape regional and global security by reducing the chance of a U.S.-backed Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and preventing Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.
A deal could also transform Iran’s economic and political landscape by easing American sanctions and opening the country up to foreign investors.
The New York Times reported in mid-April that Israel had planned to attack Iranian nuclear sites as soon as this month, but the Israelis were waved off by Mr. Trump, who wanted to negotiate an agreement with Tehran instead.
Mr. Trump, in an interview with Time magazine on April 25, said he had not stopped Israel’s attack.
“But I didn’t make it comfortable for them because I think we can make a deal without the attack. I hope we can,” he said. “It’s possible we’ll have to attack because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”
Iran has been enriching uranium to around 60 percent purity, just short of the levels needed to produce a weapon. It has amassed enough to build several bombs if it chooses to weaponize, according to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and the I.A.E.A. has said it has not found signs of weaponization.
If its nuclear facilities are attacked, Iran has said it would retaliate fiercely and would consider leaving the U.N. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Iran’s economy and the future of its 90 million people are also on the line.
Years of sanctions have created chronic inflation — exacerbated by economic mismanagement and corruption. Now, many Iranians say they feel trapped in a downward spiral and hope that a U.S.-Iran deal would help.
What are the sticking points?
The question of whether to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium has divided Mr. Trump’s advisers.
Mr. Witkoff has described a possible agreement that would allow Iran to enrich uranium at the low levels needed to produce fuel for energy, along with monitoring.
Iranian officials have said they are willing to reduce enrichment levels to those specified in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama administration — 3.67 percent — around the level needed to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.
But in a recent podcast interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Iran could have a civilian nuclear program without enriching uranium domestically — by importing enriched uranium, as other countries do.
Iran invited the United States to invest in its nuclear program and help build 19 more nuclear reactors as an extra measure of security, according to Mr. Araghchi, the foreign minister.
“The trillion-dollar opportunity that our economy presents may be open to U.S. enterprises,” Mr. Araghchi said in a speech he shared on social media. “This includes companies which can help us generate clean electricity from non-hydrocarbon sources.”
Agreeing to limits on how much enriched uranium Iran can possess and to what level it can enrich exposes Mr. Trump to criticism that he is only replicating the key elements of the Obama-era nuclear agreement, which Mr. Trump has condemned as “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.”
Analysts say some possible measures to improve on the Obama-era deal could include more stringent monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities, joint ventures to run the nuclear facilities and making Iran’s guarantees permanent.
How did we get here?
The two sides came into the negotiations with deep distrust.
The previous deal between Iran and the United States and other world powers, signed during the Obama administration, was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
It put measures in place to prevent Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program by capping enrichment of uranium at 3.5 percent, transferring stockpiles of enriched uranium to Russia and allowing monitoring cameras and inspections by the I.A.E.A.
Mr. Trump unilaterally exited the nuclear deal in 2018. European companies then pulled out of Iran, and banks stopped working with Iran, fearing U.S. sanctions.
About a year after Mr. Trump left the agreement, Iran, not seeing any financial benefits, moved away from its obligations and increased its levels uranium enrichment, gradually reaching 60 percent.
What comes next?
So far, there appears to be political will on both sides to reach a new deal, and discussions are scheduled to continue.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had barred negotiating with Mr. Trump in the past, authorized the talks and said the negotiating team has his support.
But a deal is not necessarily around the corner.
Talks could still break down at the technical level, which was the most challenging part of previous negotiations.
It is also possible that an interim deal could be reached to freeze uranium enrichment while a permanent deal is hashed out.
Lara Jakes, David E. Sanger and Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
Vivian Nereim is the lead reporter for The Times covering the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. She is based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Vivian Yee is a Times reporter covering North Africa and the broader Middle East. She is based in Cairo.
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