Iran’s top negotiators believe it is possible to reach an agreement with the US on a nuclear program, as long as Washington is realistic.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Arakich and US Middle Eastern envoy Steve Witkov will begin indirect negotiations through Omani mediators after their first round in Muscat.
“If they show the seriousness of their intentions and do not make unrealistic demands, they can reach an agreement,” Arakich said at a press conference in Moscow on Friday after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
However, Tehran tried to curb expectations of a quick deal. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said this week that he was “not overly optimistic or pessimistic.”
The talks take place under the shadow of Donald Trump’s threat to attack Iran if Iran does not sign a contract with the US in its nuclear program.
The US president told reporters on Friday: “I have very simply stopped them from having nuclear weapons. They can’t have nuclear weapons. I want Iran to be great, prosperous and wonderful.”
Trump, who abandoned the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six forces in 2015 in his first term in 2018 and re-imagined the crippling sanctions in Tehran, has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign in Iran since returning to the White House in January.
Washington hopes Iran will halt its production of rich uranium. We believe this is intended to build an atomic bomb.
Tehran, who has always said that the nuclear program is peace, says he is willing to negotiate some curbs in exchange for lifting sanctions, but hopes that Washington will not be revived again, as Trump did in 2018.
Aragut said that Iran’s right to enrich uranium, which enriches uranium, is “unnegotiable” after Witkov asked for a complete halt.
Since 2019, Iran has violated 2015 trade restrictions on uranium enrichment, far surpassing its stocks that the West says are needed for its private energy programme.
In an interview released Wednesday by French newspaper Le Monde, UN Nuclear Watch Office chief Rafael Grossy said Iran was “not too far” from owning a nuclear bomb.
Grossi, who consulted with Iranian officials during his visit to Tehran this week, said the US and Iran were “at a very important stage” of discussions and “we don’t have much time” to secure a deal.
