Muscat, Oman – Iran and the United States prepared on Saturday to start negotiations in depth in Oman about The nuclear program that Tehran advances quicklyThe conversations that probably depend on the enrichment of Uranium of the Islamic Republic.
Iranian state television suggested that conversations could start at noon on Saturday in Muscat, the capital wrapped in mountain of this sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arab Peninsula. However, either Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, nor the envoy of the Middle East, Steve Witkoff He offered any immediate detail or detail about the conversations they will lead.
Araghchi arrived on Friday at Oman And he met with Omaní Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busidi, who measured the two previous round of conversations in Muscat and Rome. Araghchi then He visited the Muscat International Book Fairsurrounded by television cameras and photojournalists. The video on Saturday morning showed that Araghchi goes to the conversations.
Witkoff was in Moscow on Friday by meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Saturday arrived in Oman, where the conversations were expected to begin in the next few hours, said a source familiar with Witkoff’s trips to The Associated Press, speaking under condition of anonymity to discuss closed negotiations.
The conversations seek to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the elevation of some of the overwhelming economic sanctions that the United States has imposed on the Islamic Republic approaching in half a century of enmity.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has repeatedly threatened unleash the air attacks aimed at the Iran program If an agreement is not reached. Iranian officials warn more and more than They could pursue a nuclear weapon with its enriched uranium arsenal to nearby levels of degree of weapons.
Iran’s nuclear agreement in 2015 with world powers limited Tehran’s program. However, Trump retired unilaterally in 2018, moving years of attacks and tensions. The widest Middle East also remains nervous The devastating Israel-Ahamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Trump, traveling to Rome for The funeral of Pope FrancisHe said again that he expected the negotiations to lead to a new nuclear agreement. However, the possibility of a military strike still resisted if they did not.
“Iran’s situation is going very well,” Trump said on Air Force One. “We have had many conversations with them and I think we are going to have a deal. I prefer to have a deal than the other alternative. That would be good for humanity.”
He added: “There are some people who want to make a different type of treatment, a much more unpleasant treatment, and I don’t want that to happen to Iran if we can avoid it.”
While Araghchi and Witkoff are expected to speak again through the Odes, experts on both sides will also begin to negotiate details of a possible agreement.
From the Iranian side, Iranian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Majid Takht-E Ravanchi, will direct Tehran’s team of experts, said Mohammad Golzari, an Iranian government official. Takht-E Ravanchi participated in the 2015 nuclear conversations.
The United States Technical Team, which is expected to arrive in Oman on Friday, will be led by Michael Anton, the director of the Secretary of State of the United States, the Planning staff of Marco Rubio. Anton does not have the experience of nuclear policy of those who led the United States efforts in the 2015 conversations.
Iran has insisted that maintaining its enrichment is key. But Witkoff has buried the problem by suggesting first in a television interview that Iran could enrich Uranium at 3.67%, then saying that every enrichment must stop. This demand for all enrichment stops has also been repeated by the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
However, the Iranians still hope that conversations can be successful, since the Iranian rial has recovered from historical minimums during which it took more than 1 million rial to buy $ 1.
“It is well to negotiate, make the nuclear program smaller or larger, and reach an agreement,” said Tehran resident, Farzin Keivan. “Of course we should not give them everything. After all, we have suffered a lot for this program.”
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Associated Press Amir Vahdat writer in Tehran, Iran, contributed to this report.
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Additional AP coverage of the nuclear landscape: https://apnews.com/projects/the-new-nuclear-landscape/
