Iran and US to meet in Oman for more talks on Tehran’s advancing nuclear program

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran and the United States will meet again this weekend for talks over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said the talks Sunday would again be held in Oman, which has mediated three previous rounds of negotiations.

The two will speak in both direct and indirect talks, according to a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity Friday to describe private diplomatic contacts. It comes ahead of Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week.

Witkoff, in an interview with the conservative outlet Breitbart News published Friday, ramped up U.S. demands for a deal. After weeks of mixed messaging, he said the U.S. would not allow Iran to maintain a uranium enrichment program, which had been a main criticism of the 2015 nuclear deal reached during the Obama administration.

That agreement, which Trump withdrew from in 2018 during his first term, had allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium at low levels. Critics said that allowed Tehran a pathway to eventual nuclear weapons development.

“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again,” Witkoff told Breitbart. “That’s our red line. No enrichment. That means dismantlement, it means no weaponization, and it means that Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan — those are their three enrichment facilities — have to be dismantled.”

Witkoff also said that during the talks Iran had reiterated it did not want to acquire a nuclear weapon, something that Iranian officials have said for years.

“We believe that they cannot have enrichment, they cannot have centrifuges, they cannot have anything that allows them to build a weapon,” he said.

He added that if the talks on Sunday were not productive, “then they won’t continue, and we’ll have to take a different route.”

Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign. He has repeatedly suggested military action against Iran remains a possibility, while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached after writing a letter to Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iranian officials increasingly have threatened that they could pursue a nuclear weapon.

Oman did not immediately acknowledge its hosting of the Sunday talks.

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Lee reported from Washington.