Iran: Regime and US Continue Nuclear Talks
Iran and the United States each said talks over the Iranian nuclear program would continue after holding a second meeting on Saturday.
But neither side provided details, illustrating the complexity of reaching an agreement.
The talks involve Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate developer who also is serving as President Donald Trump’s personal envoy for resolving the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Oman, a traditional broker between Washington and the Iranian regime, is serving as mediator.
It said after Saturday’s talks that Iran and the US would enter a new phase of negotiations to guarantee Iran’s full renunciation of nuclear weapons, the complete lifting of economic sanctions against Iran, and the safeguarding of Iran’s development of nuclear energy.
Iran widely is thought to be on the threshold of enriching enough uranium to produce a nuclear bomb in a matter of days.
It could rapidly produce several nuclear bombs, but it would take perhaps two years for it to reliably mount nuclear warheads on the ballistic missiles it has been developing for decades.
Faced with dire economic problems that undermine its popular support, the Iranian regime is desperate for sanctions relief.
Trump publicly has demanded that Iran halt enrichment, turn over its stocks of enriched uranium to a third party and destroy its nuclear infrastructure.
Those are nonstarters for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.
Speaking to the press last week, Witkoff signaled openness to compromise but quickly walked back his remarks, suggesting he had fallen out of sync with Trump, at least publicly.
Trump has said Iran would risk military attack if it fails to curb its nuclear program.
Israel, which severely degraded Iran’s air defense networks when it and Iran exchanged unprecedented air attacks against each other last year, conceivably could join US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.
Extensive bombing would damage but probably not destroy Iran’s known nuclear assets, which are in complexes carved deep within mountains.
Iran likely would retaliate with missile and drone attacks against critical oil-production infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, all of which have come to doubt the willingness and ability of the US to defend them and have appealed to Washington to not attack Iran and conclude a nuclear agreement with it.
Neither Iran nor the US has an interest in war but events could spin out of control.
Developments should be monitored closely.
