Iran and US delegates set to hold talks in Turkey
Speaking to Reuters, Iranian and US officials said that Iran and the US will continue nuclear negotiations in Türkiye, while a regional diplomat said that representatives from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt will also attend.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will meet in Istanbul on Friday to revive diplomacy over the long-running dispute over Iran’s nuclear program and allay fears of a new regional war.
Türkiye and other regional allies sought to reduce tensions.
“In addition to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, some other countries will also participate in the Istanbul meeting. There will be bilateral, trilateral and other meetings,” the diplomat said.
Tensions remain high as the United States builds a naval base near Iran following last month’s violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations, Iran’s deadliest civil unrest since the 1979 revolution.
US President Donald Trump, who has refrained from following through on threats to intervene during the crackdown, has since demanded Iran make nuclear concessions and sent a fleet to its shores.
While he said last week that Iran was “talking seriously”, Iran’s top security official, Ali Larijani, said negotiating arrangements were ongoing.
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Trump had demanded three conditions for resuming talks: zero uranium enrichment in Iran, limiting Iran’s ballistic missile program and ending support for regional proxies.
Iran has long rejected all three demands as unacceptable violations of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters that clerics see the ballistic missile program, rather than uranium enrichment, as the biggest obstacle.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei stated that Iran was evaluating “various dimensions and aspects of the negotiations” and said that “time is very important for Iran because Iran wants the unfair sanctions to be lifted as soon as possible.”
A Turkish official from the ruling party told Reuters that Iran and the United States agreed to refocus on diplomacy and possible talks this week in a bid to delay potential US attacks.
Witkoff is expected to visit Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s military chief, two senior Israeli officials said separately on Monday.
The Iranian official said, “Diplomacy continues. For the continuation of negotiations, Iran should not be a precondition and is ready to show flexibility on uranium enrichment, including the delivery of more than 400 kg of highly enriched uranium, and to accept zero enrichment as a solution under a consortium arrangement.”
However, he added that Iran wants US military assets to be removed from Iran before talks can begin.
“The ball is now in Trump’s court,” he said.
After five rounds of talks stalled since May 2023, some intractable issues remain between Iran and the United States, including Iran’s insistence on continuing uranium enrichment on its own soil and its refusal to send its entire existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium abroad.
The United States and its allies fear that Iran’s uranium enrichment could produce material for warheads.
Iran says its nuclear program is for electricity generation and other civilian purposes only.
Iranian sources have said the country could send its highly enriched uranium abroad and halt enrichment in a deal that would include the lifting of economic sanctions.
