Iran’s foreign ministry said Sunday that talks with the United States slated for next weekend will remain “indirect” with Omani mediation, and focused solely on the nuclear issue and lifting of sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks Saturday in Muscat, marking the highest-level Iran-US nuclear negotiations since the collapse of a 2015 accord.
They agreed to meet again in seven days.
“Negotiations will continue to be indirect. Oman will remain the mediator, but we are discussing the location of future negotiations,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in an interview with state TV.
He said the talks would only focus on “the nuclear issue and the lifting of sanctions,” and that Iran “will not have any talks with the American side on any other issue.”
Analysts had said the US would push to include on the agenda discussions over Iran’s ballistic missile programme along with Tehran’s support for the “axis of resistance” — a network of militant groups opposed to Israel.
Tehran has, however, maintained it will talk only about its nuclear programme.
Donald Trump in 2018 pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers during his first term as US president.
He reimposed sweeping economic sanctions against Iran, which continued to adhere to the agreement for a year after Washington’s pullout but later began rolling back its own commitments.
Iran has consistently denied seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the US defense secretary reiterated Sunday that the United States hopes for a diplomatic solution to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but if that failed the military was ready “to go deep and to go big.”
He told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that while President Donald Trump hoped to never have to resort to a military option, “We’ve shown a capability to go far, to go deep and to go big.”
“Again, we don’t want to do that, but if we have to, we will to prevent the nuclear bomb in Iran’s hands.”
Analysts say Iran may now be just weeks away from producing a deliverable nuclear weapon — though Tehran denies it is building such arms.
