Iran and the United States held hours of indirect negotiations Thursday over Tehran’s nuclear program but walked away without a deal, as the U.S. has gathered a massive fleet of aircraft and warships in the region.
its long-range missile program and its support for regional armed groups. Iran says it will only discuss nuclear issues, and maintains its atomic program is for entirely peaceful purposes.
Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who mediated the talks in Geneva, said there had been “significant progress in the negotiation” without elaborating.
But just before the talks ended, Iranian state television reported that Tehran was determined to continue enriching uranium, rejected proposals to transfer it abroad and sought the lifting of international sanctions, indicating it was not prepared to meet U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands.
Trump wants a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, and he sees an opportunity while the country is struggling at home with growing dissent following nationwide protests. Iran also hopes to avert war, but maintains it has the right to enrich uranium and does not want to discuss other issues, like its long-range missile program or its support for armed groups in the region.
Al-Busaidi said technical-level talks would continue next week in Vienna, the home of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United Nations’ atomic watchdog likely would be critical in any deal.
In an interview with Iranian state television, Iran’s foreign minister said the talks with the U.S. were some of the country’s “most intense and longest rounds of negotiations.”
Abbas Araghchi offered no specifics but said “what needs to happen has been clearly spelled out from our side.”
If America attacks Iran, U.S. military bases in the region could become targets for Iranian retaliation. Tehran has also threatened to strike Israel, which launched a war on Iran in June of last year. The Israeli conflict drew in the U.S., with American forces later carrying out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The 12-day war ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire announced by President Trump. Israeli-U.S. strikes led to the collapse of Oman-mediated nuclear negotiations, and Tehran’s resulting mistrust caused a pause in U.S. talks.
Although talks resumed, Israel has been pressuring the U.S. to initiate a new war against Iran.
“There would be no victory for anybody — it would be a devastating war,” Araghchi told India Today in an interview recorded Wednesday just before he flew to Geneva.
“Since the Americans’ bases are scattered through different places in the region, then unfortunately perhaps the whole region would be engaged and be involved, so it is a very terrible scenario.”
Ali Vaez, an Iran expert with the International Crisis Group, said it was a good sign that the Americans did not walk away immediately Thursday when Iran presented its latest proposal.
“There might still not be a breakthrough at the end of this day, but the very fact that the U.S. team is returning shows that there is enough common ground between the two sides,” he said.
The two sides held multiple rounds of talks last year, which collapsed when Israel launched its 12-day war against Iran, a conflict that the U.S. later joined.
Araghchi represented Iran at the talks. Steve Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer and friend of Trump who serves as a special Mideast envoy, headed up the U.S. delegation with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The talks again were mediated by Oman, an Arab Gulf country that’s long served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.The two sides adjourned after around three hours of talks and resumed the discussions later.
During the break, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said the Iranians felt there were “constructive proposals” offered on both nuclear issues and sanctions relief.
Trump wants Iran to completely halt its enrichment of uranium and roll back both its long-range missile program and its support for regional armed groups. Iran says it will only discuss nuclear issues, and maintains its atomic program is for entirely peaceful purposes
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday that Iran is “always trying to rebuild elements” of its nuclear program. He said that Tehran is not enriching uranium right now, “but they’re trying to get to the point where they ultimately can.”
Iran has said it hasn’t enriched since June, but it has blocked IAEA inspectors from visiting the sites America bombed.
The West and the IAEA say Iran had a nuclear weapons program until 2003. After Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, Tehran ramped up its enrichment of uranium to 60% purity.
If the talks fail, uncertainty hangs over the timing of any possible U.S. attack.
If the aim of potential military action is to pressure Iran to make concessions in nuclear negotiations, it’s not clear whether limited strikes would work. If the goal is to remove Iran’s leaders, that will likely commit the U.S. to a larger, longer military campaign. There has been no public sign of planning for what would come next, including the potential for chaos in Iran.
There is also uncertainty about what any military action could mean for the wider region.
Tehran could retaliate against the American-allied nations of the Arabic Gulf or Israel. Oil prices have risen in recent days in part due to those concerns, with benchmark Brent crude now around $70 a barrel. Iran in the last round of talks said it briefly halted traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Arabic Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil passes.
The nuclear project, which was once a tool for regional projection, has now been reduced to become a bargaining chip that the regime uses as a last asset to ensure its continuity. Consequently, “strategic decoupling” is what explains Tehran’s current strategy, as the regime bets on the current Trump administration’s transactional foreign policy and a desire to avoid another major conflict to accept a technical freeze of the nuclear situation in exchange for casting a blind eye on the regime’s internal conduct. Simply put, the regime aims to trade a breakout threat for the financial resources needed to pay its security apparatus and middle class, given that these protests started in Bazars.
Assets are legitimate targets, Iran warns US bases, if attacks launched
