Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.
Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff held talks in Oman on Saturday, during which Omani envoy Badr Al Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.
Both sides described the talks in Oman as ‘positive’, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters the meeting “was only aimed at setting the terms of possible future negotiations”.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Araqchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held ‘soon’ in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.
Tehran has approached the talks warily, doubting the likelihood of an agreement and suspicious of Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran if there is no deal.
Washington aims to halt Tehran’s sensitive uranium enrichment work – regarded by the United States, Israel and European powers as a path to nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is solely for civilian energy production.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Araqchi will “discuss the latest developments related to the Muscat talks” with Russian officials.
Moscow, a party to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, has supported Tehran’s right to have a civilian nuclear programme.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on vital state matters, distrusts the US, and Trump in particular.
But Khamenei has been forced to engage with Washington in search of a nuclear deal due to fears that public anger at home over economic hardship could erupt into mass protests and endanger the existence of the clerical establishment, four Iranian officials told Reuters in March.
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