A third cycle of talks between Iran and the United States about Tehran’s nuclear activities was planned for Saturday, which made a new agreement hoped for which could avoid another conflict in the Middle East.
“I think we are going to conclude an agreement with Iran. No one else could do so,” said President Trump said in an interview with Time Magazine Posted on Friday. Trump abandoned a previous nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018 during his first mandate, saying that it was a defective agreement.
Translections have the potential to reshape regional and global security by reducing the chances of an Israeli attack supported by the United States against Iranian nuclear installations and preventing Iran from producing a nuclear weapon. An agreement could also transform the economic and political landscape of Iran by attenuating American sanctions and by opening the country to foreign investors.
What’s going on on Saturday?
Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy of Mr. Trump; Abbas Araghchi, Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs; And teams of technical experts on both sides will meet in the Sultanate of the Gulf of Oman, which mediate the talks.
This round will include the nuts of “expert conferences”, which bring together nuclear and financial teams on both sides with technical details. These could include problems such as monitoring Iranian nuclear installations, its levels of enrichment of uranium and what will happen to its highly enriched uranium stocks,, as well as the relaxation of sanctions.
Trump himself defined the objective of negotiations as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The managers of his administration, however, sent mixed messages on what it means. Saturday talks could help clarify the contours of an agreement.
What’s at stake?
A new nuclear agreement could delay or avoid a broader conflict between Iran and Israel and the United States. Israel and Iran have exchanged direct attacks since the start of the war in Gaza in 2023.
Last week, the New York Times reported that Israel had planned to attack the Iranian nuclear sites next month, but it was agitated by Mr. Trump, who wanted to negotiate an agreement with Tehran instead.
Trump, in his interview in time, said that he had not stopped the attack on Israel.
“But I was not comfortable for them, because I think we can conclude an agreement without the attack. I hope we can,” he said. “It is possible that we should attack because Iran will have no nuclear weapons.”
Iran has enriched uranium at around 60% purity, just at less than the necessary levels to produce a weapon. He has accumulated enough to build several bombs if he chooses armament, according to the UN nuclear guard dog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran says that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and that the AIEA said that it had not found signs of armaments.
If its nuclear installations were attacked, Iran said it would retaliate fiercely and plan to leave the United Nations Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The Iranian economy and the future of its 90 million people are also at stake.
Years of sanctions have created chronic inflation – exacerbated by poor economic management and corruption. Now, many Iranians say they feel trapped in a descending spiral and hope that an American-Iranian agreement would help you.
What happened during previous discussions?
The first round of nuclear talks took place in Oman two weeks ago, followed by a second round in Rome last weekend.
The two parties said the negotiations had been constructive and that they were moving in the right direction.
Iranian officials said they were willing to reduce enrichment levels to those specified in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama administration – 3.67% – around the level necessary to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.
What are the collage points?
The question of knowing whether to allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium divided Mr. Trump’s advisers.
Mr. Witkoff has described a possible agreement which would allow Iran to enrich uranium with the low levels necessary to produce fuel for energy, as well as surveillance.
But in an interview with the podcast this week, the Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Iran could have a civil nuclear program without enriching uranium at the national level – important in enriched uranium, as do other countries.
Mike Waltz, the national security advisor, said the United States was looking for a total dismantling of the Iranian nuclear program, a position that Iran had considered a non-starter.
Iran has invited the United States to invest in its nuclear program and to help build 19 additional nuclear reactors as an additional security measure, according to Araghchi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“The opportunity of billions of dollars that our economy presents can be opened to American companies,” said Araghchi in a speech he shared on social networks. “This includes companies that can help us generate clean electricity from non -hydrocarbon sources.”
Accept the limits of the quantity of uranium enriched that Iran can own and at what level it can enrich exposes Mr. Trump to criticism that he reproduced only the key elements of the nuclear agreement of the Obama era.
Analysts claim that certain possible measures to improve the old agreement may include stricter monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities, joint ventures to manage nuclear installations and make the guarantees of Iran permanent.
How did we get here?
The two parties entered the negotiations with deep distrust.
The previous agreement between Iran and the United States and other global powers has been called the Complete Complete Action Plan.
It has implemented measures to prevent armament Iran its nuclear program by capping the enrichment of uranium to 3.5%, by transferring uranium stocks enriched in Russia and allowing surveillance cameras and IEA inspections
European companies withdrew from Iran and the banks have stopped working with Iran, fearing American sanctions.
About a year after the conclusion of the agreement, Iran, seeing no financial advantage, has moved away from its obligations and increased its levels of uranium enrichment, gradually reaching 60%.
What comes next?
Until now, there seems to be a political will on both sides to achieve a new agreement.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had forbidden to negotiate with Trump in the past, authorized the talks and said the negotiation team had their support.
But an agreement is not necessarily around the corner.
The talks could still decompose at the technical level, which was the most difficult part of previous negotiations.
It is also possible that a provisional agreement can be concluded to freeze a uranium enrichment while a permanent agreement is chopped.
Lara Jakes And David E. SANGER Contributed reports.
