U.S. President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement on Monday that the United States and Iran were poised to begin direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, but Iran’s foreign minister said the discussions in Oman would be indirect.
In a further sign of the difficult path ahead to any deal between the two geopolitical foes, Trump issued a stark warning that if the talks are unsuccessful, “Iran is going to be in great danger.”
Iran had pushed back against Trump’s demands in recent weeks that it directly negotiate over its nuclear program or be bombed, and it appeared to be sticking to that position on Monday.
“We’re having direct talks with Iran, and they’ve started. It’ll go on Saturday. We have a very big meeting, and we’ll see what can happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during talks with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“And I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable,” Trump said. Trump said Saturday’s talks with Iran would be at a very high level but declined to elaborate. He also declined to say where the talks would take place but held out the possibility that a deal could be reached.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araqchi posted on X that indirect high-level talks would be held in Oman, adding: “It is as much an opportunity as it is a test. The ball is in America’s court.”
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said the United States and Iran were poised to begin direct talks on Tehran’s nuclear program, warning that if talks are unsuccessful, ‘Iran is going to be in great danger.’ However, a senior Iranian official said any negotiations would be indirect, with Oman acting as intermediary.
Years since direct talks
The U.S. and Iran held indirect talks during Joe Biden’s presidential term but they made little if any progress. The last known direct negotiations between the two governments were under President Barack Obama, who spearheaded the 2015 international nuclear deal that Trump later abandoned.
Trump has said he would prefer a deal over Iran’s nuclear program to a military confrontation and he said on March 7 he had written to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to suggest talks. Iranian officials said at the time that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and if the talks aren’t successful I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Monday.
Such talks would not occur without the explicit approval of Khamenei, who in February said negotiations with the U.S. were “not smart, wise, or honourable.”
Hours before Trump’s announcement, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said Iran was awaiting a U.S. response to Tehran’s proposal for indirect negotiations. He said the Islamic Republic believed it was making a generous, responsible and honourable offer.
After Trump spoke, a senior Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters: “The talks will not be direct… It will be with Oman’s mediation.” Oman, which maintains good relations with both the U.S. and Iran, has been a longtime channel for messages between the rival states.
Iran’s Nournews, affiliated with the country’s top security body, described Trump’s statement about a planned direct meeting as part of a “psychological operation aimed at influencing domestic and international public opinion.”
A second Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said over the weekend there was possibly a window of around two months to reach a deal, citing worries that Iran’s longtime foe Israel might launch its own attack if talks took longer.
Netanyahu, who has shown little support for U.S. negotiations with Iran, said if diplomacy could prevent Tehran from ever getting nuclear weapons “in a full way, the way it was done in Libya, I think that would be a good thing.”
U.S. withdrew from deal
During his first term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers designed to curb Iran’s sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump also reimposed sweeping U.S. sanctions.
Since then, Iran has far surpassed that deal’s limits on uranium enrichment.
Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy program.
Tehran says its nuclear program is wholly for civilian energy purposes.
The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for details.
The shift comes at a precarious time for Tehran’s regional “Axis of Resistance” which it has established at great cost over decades to oppose Israel and U.S. influence. The axis has been severely weakened since Palestinian group Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, tipped the Middle East into conflict.
Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been hammered by Israel since the war in Gaza began while the Houthi movement in Yemen has been targeted by U.S. airstrikes since last month. Israel severely damaged Iran’s air defences last year.
The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, another key Iranian ally, has further weakened Iran’s influence.
