Iran Foreign Minister Says Progress Made In Nuclear Talks With U.S. In Geneva

GENEVA, February 17 (Reuters) – Iranian and the United States agreed Tuesday on key “guiding principles” in talks aimed at resolving the long-running nuclear dispute, but that doesn’t mean a deal is imminent. IranianIranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said:

Following Araqchi’s comments, oil futures fell and the benchmark Brent crude contract lost more than 1%; this has helped reduce fears of conflict in the region, where the US has deployed naval forces to put pressure. Iranian for concessions.

“Different ideas were presented, these ideas were seriously discussed, and in the end we managed to reach a general agreement on some guiding principles,” Araqchi said. IranianIt was reflected in the media after the talks concluded in Geneva.

A US official said: Iranian He will make detailed proposals to close the gaps in the nuclear talks within the next two weeks.

“Progress has been made, but there are still a lot of details to discuss,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

indirect arguments Between US Special Representative Steve Witkoff and the US President Donald Trump’s his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, served as Oman’s mediator along with Araqchi. The White House did not respond to emailed questions about the meeting.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said in his social media post that “there is still a lot of work to be done” but Iranian and the US was leaving with “clear next steps.”

As negotiations begin on Tuesday, IranianIan state media said Iranian Some parts of the Strait of Hormuz, the global oil supply route, are temporarily closed due to “security measures”. Iranian‘s elite Revolutionary Guards conducted military exercises here. Later, state media announced that the strait was closed for several hours, without giving clear information about whether it was fully opened.

Tehran has in the past threatened to close the strait to commercial shipping if attacked; This was a move that would halt one-fifth of global oil flows and increase crude oil prices.

He responded to Trump’s statements “regime change” inside Iranian The country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, warned that any US attempt to overthrow his government would fail.

“The President of the United States says his army is the strongest in the world, but the strongest army in the world can sometimes get slapped so hard that it cannot stand up,” he said. Iranianian media.

Speaking at the disarmament conference in Geneva after the talks, Araqchi said that a “new window of opportunity” had opened and that he hoped the discussions would lead to a “sustainable” solution that would ensure full recognition of disarmament. Iranian‘s legitimate rights.

Trump had previously said that he, too, would be “indirectly” involved in the Geneva talks and that he believed so. Iranian He wanted to make a deal.

“I don’t think they want the consequences of not making a deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday. “We could have made a deal instead of sending B-2s to eliminate their nuclear potential. And we had to send B-2s,” Trump said, referring to the US military’s stealth bombers.

US joined Israel in bombing last June IranianIan nuclear facilities. USA and Israel believe Iranian It aims to produce a nuclear weapon that could threaten Israel’s existence. Iranian It says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, even though it enriches uranium to a level far beyond the purity needed for energy production and close to that needed for a bomb.

Since these strikes IranianIslamist rulers were weakened by street protests against a cost-of-living crisis caused in part by international sanctions, which were suppressed at the cost of thousands of lives. Iranianoil revenue.

The United States has sought to expand the scope of the negotiations to include non-nuclear issues. Iranianmissile stock. Iranian He said he was only willing to discuss restrictions on his nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and would not completely abandon uranium enrichment or discuss his missile program.

Khamenei reiterated IranianHis stance that the massive missile stockpile is non-negotiable and that missile type and range have nothing to do with the United States.

Senior IranianThe success of the Geneva talks depends on the United States not making unrealistic demands and being serious about lifting crippling sanctions against the United States, an official told Reuters on Tuesday. Iranian.

Tehran and Washington were scheduled to hold a sixth round of talks last June as Washington’s ally Israel launched a bombing campaign against Iran. Iranianand was later joined by American B-2 bombers hitting nuclear targets. Tehran has since announced that it has stopped uranium enrichment activities.

Iranian accedes to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; This agreement guarantees countries the right to obtain civilian nuclear energy in exchange for giving up atomic weapons and cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.

Israel, which has not signed the treaty, neither confirms nor denies having nuclear weapons, under a decades-old policy of uncertainty designed to deter peripheral enemies. Academics believe so.

(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin; Parisa Hafezi and Elwely Elwelly in Dubai, Menna Alaa El-Din in Cairo, Humeyra Pamuk in Budapest, Rishabh Jaiswal in Bengaluru and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Sharon Singleton, Gareth Jones and Jonathan Oatis)