US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi plan to meet on Friday in Istanbul to discuss a possible nuclear deal and other issues, a US official said yesterday.
“The president’s been calling for them to make a deal. The meeting is to hear what they have to say,” the official said.
An Iranian foreign ministry official earlier said Tehran was weighing the terms for resuming talks with the US soon, after both sides signalled readiness to revive diplomacy over a long-running nuclear dispute and dispel fears of a new regional war.
Friday’s planned meeting was first reported by Axios.
Tensions are running high amid a military buildup by the US Navy near Iran, following a violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrations last month, the deadliest domestic unrest in Iran since its 1979 revolution.
Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene during the crackdown, has since demanded Tehran make nuclear concessions and sent a flotilla to its coast. He said last week Iran was “seriously talking”, while Tehran’s top security official Ali Larijani said arrangements for negotiations were under way.
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Trump had demanded three preconditions for resumption of talks: Zero enrichment of uranium in Iran, limits on Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and ending its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long rejected all three demands as unacceptable infringements of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its clerical rulers see the ballistic missile programme, rather than uranium enrichment, as the bigger obstacle.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said Tehran was considering “the various dimensions and aspects of the talks”, adding that “time is of the essence for Iran as it wants lifting of unjust sanctions sooner.”
Türkiye and other regional allies have sought de-escalation.
A Turkish ruling party official told Reuters that Tehran and Washington had agreed to re-focus on diplomacy and possible talks this week, in a potential reprieve for possible US strikes.
Witkoff is expected to visit Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s military chief, two senior Israeli officials said separately yesterday.
The Iranian official said “diplomacy is ongoing. For talks to resume, Iran says there should not be preconditions and that it is ready to show flexibility on uranium enrichment, including handing over 400kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU), accepting zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement as a solution”.
However, he added, for the start of talks, Tehran wants US military assets moved away from Iran.
“Now the ball is in Trump’s court,” he said.
Tehran’s regional sway has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its proxies – from Hamas in Gaza to Hizbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq – as well as by the ousting of Iran’s close ally, Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad.
l Iran’s state-linked Fars news agency yesterday removed a report claiming that President Masoud Pezeshkian had ordered the start of nuclear talks with the United States, after Trump said he was hopeful of a deal to avert military action against the Islamic Republic.
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