The newspaper, featuring headline stories about indirect negotiations between Iran and the US in Muscat, Oman, is on display on April 12, 2025 at a newsstand in Tehran, Iran.
fatemeh bahrami |Anadoru | Getty Images
Iran and the US are planning another meeting next week over Tehran’s rapid advance nuclear programme, after both sides said they made progress in consultations in Rome on Saturday.
US officials confirmed that during negotiations in Rome, President Donald Trump’s special mission, Steve Witkov and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragut, had spoken in his face.
Before meeting again in Oman on April 26, Araguchi said there will be technical level consultations in the coming days. The experts will be discussing details of possible deals and come when Trump calls for a quick agreement while threatening military action against Iran.
“We have made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions,” according to a Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private diplomatic conference.
In a post on X, Araghchi similarly stated that he made “an advancement in the principles and objectives of possible transactions.” However, he added, “Optimism is necessary, but we are only paying great attention.”
He previously told Iranian state television, “I hope we are in a better position after technical consultations.”
The US said both direct and indirect debate took place, but Iranian officials described them as indirect, as with the foreign minister of Omani al-Busadi, who had them reciprocated between them in different rooms, as they did last weekend in Muscat, Oman.
“These talks have gained momentum and even things that are unlikely to happen now are possible,” Al Busadi said in X.
In another post, Oman’s Foreign Ministry said it has agreed to continue talking to the request of a transaction that will ensure that Iran is “completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions and that it will maintain its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy.”
The speech represents a historic moment, given the decades of hostility between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis. In his first term, Trump unilaterally withdrew from nuclear deals with Iranian world powers in 2018, sparking long-standing attacks and negotiations that failed to restore an agreement that dramatically restricted Tehran’s uranium enrichment in exchange for lifting sanctions.
As tensions rise in the Middle East, lectures arise
At risk, Iranians may follow the US or Israeli military strikes against Iranian nuclear sites or their threat to pursue atomic weapons. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East have killed more than 70 people and injured dozens more after the Israeli-Hamas War in Gaza and the US airstrikes targeting Iran-backed Hooti rebels in Yemen.
“I’m very simply trying to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons,” Trump said Friday. “I want Iran to be wonderfully thriving and wonderful.”
Before the Iranian speech began, Witkov met in Rome with Rafael Mariano Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The UN Nuclear Watch Office will be key in verifying compliance by Iran if it reaches a transaction, just as Accord Iran reached a world power in 2015.
Amid the fuss of the gathering, Grossi met with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.
The diplomatic contract is “constructed with patientness every day, with dialogue and mutual respect,” Tajani said in a statement.
Aragut and Witkov were prior to the lecture
Witkov was in Paris to talk about Ukraine as a full-scale Russian war was crushed there. He also met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategic ministers, Ron Dahmer and Mossad Chief David Barnea, in the French capital.
Dahmer was found in Rome on Saturday at the same hotel where Witkov was staying. It is unclear whether that was a coincidence or not, and Dahma was never part of Iran’s speech.
Araguchi recently visited Moscow where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia, one of the world’s powers involved in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal, could become a key participant in future deals reached between Tehran and Washington. Analysts suggest that Moscow could potentially detain custody of Iranian uranium, enriched to 60% purity.
The Oman capital held its first round of negotiations last weekend. This was seen meeting Araguchi and Witkov face-to-face after an indirect lecture. Oman, a sultan at the eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has long been an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
But ahead of the talks, Iran first suggested in a comment by Witkov that Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, and then said that all enrichment must cease.
Ali Shamhani, advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote to X before discussions that Iran would not accept to give up enrichment programs like Libya, or agree to use enriched uranium overseas for its nuclear program.
“Iran has sought a balanced agreement rather than surrender,” he wrote.
Iran is seeking contracts to stabilize its problematic economy
Iran’s internal politics are still inflamed with essential hijabs or scarves, and women still ignore the laws on the streets of Tehran. Rumors have also continued that the government could potentially increase the costs of subsidized gasoline in the country, sparking nationwide protests in the past.
Iran’s rial currency fell sharply to the US dollar earlier this month to over 1 million people. The currency has improved with consultations, but it hopes that what Tehran wants to continue.
Meanwhile, two Airbus A330-200s using the long-awaited Airbus A330-200s Iranian flag carrier Iran Air arrived at Merabad International Airport in Tehran on Thursday, flight tracking data analyzed by the Associated Press showed. The former China Hainan Airlines plane was in Muscat and had been re-registered with Iran.
The aircraft has a Rolls-Royce engine that contains important American parts and services. Such transactions require approval from the US Treasury Department, which has been awarded sanctions against Iran. The State Department and the Treasury Department did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran was able to buy new aircraft, lining up hundreds of billions of dollars in deals with Airbus Boeing. But manufacturers have stepped away from dealings over Trump’s threat to the nuclear deal.
