The announcement comes as head of the IAEA nuclear guard dog arrives in Tehran for talks that could revolve around accessibility for inspectors.
Iran has confirmed that its next series of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend would be held in Rome after a previous confusion on the way in which negotiations would be carried out.
The announcement of Wednesday on Iranian state television came on Wednesday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian officially approved the resignation of one of his vice-presidents, who had been a key negotiator of Tehran in his 2015 nuclear agreement with global powers.
The leader of the United Nations nuclear custody, Rafael Grossi, also arrived in Tehran on Wednesday for talks who could include negotiations on access to his inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to obtain a proposed agreement.
The announcement of state television said that Oman would once again play the talks on Saturday in Rome. Oman’s Minister of Foreign Affairs was an interlocutor between the two parties during the negotiations last weekend in Muscat, the Omanaise capital.
On Monday, some officials initially identified Rome as organizing negotiations, only for Iran to insist early Tuesday that its team would return to Oman. So far, US officials have not publicly said where the talks will be held, although US President Donald Trump called Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq on Tuesday while the sovereign was traveling in the Netherlands.
Negotiations are involved in the midst of soaring tensions between the United States and Iran on the nuclear development of the latter.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to trigger air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if an agreement is not concluded. Iranian officials have more and more warned that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stock of uranium enriched at levels of quality weapons.
‘Like a puzzle’
Grossi arrived in Tehran for meetings with Pezeshkian and others, which will probably be held on Thursday.
Shortly before his arrival, Grosi warned that Iran was “not far” to have a nuclear bomb.
“It’s like a puzzle. They have the pieces, and one day they could possibly assemble them,” Le Monde Grosi, in an interview published on Wednesday.
“There is still a way to go before getting there. But they are not far away, it must be recognized,” he said.
Since the collapse of the nuclear agreement in 2018 with the unilateral withdrawal of Trump from the United States from the agreement, Iran has abandoned all the limits of its program and enriches uranium up to 60% of purity – near the levels of quality of weapons of 90%.
The surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA have been disrupted, while Iran has prohibited some of the most experienced inspectors of the agency based in Vienna. Iranian officials have also increasingly threatened to pursue atomic weapons, something that, Western countries and IAEA, worries for years.
Any possible agreement between Iran and the United States should probably rely on the expertise of the IAEA to ensure the compliance of Tehran. And despite the tensions between Iran and the agency, its access was not completely revoked.
‘Non -negotiable’
The Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, warned the United States on Wednesday to take contradictory positions in talks.
His remarks occurred after the comments of the American envoy in the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, who initially suggested that an agreement could see Iran returning to 3.67% of uranium enrichment – as in the 2015 agreement concluded by the administration of former American president Barack Obama. Witkoff then followed by saying: “An agreement with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump agreement.”
“Iran must stop and eliminate its enrichment and nuclear weapon program,” wrote Witkoff on the social platform X. “It is imperative for the world that we create a difficult and fair affair that will continue, and that is what President Trump asked me to do.”
In response, Araghchi has issued a warning to the United States.
“Enrichment is a real and accepted problem, and we are ready to strengthen possible concerns,” noted Araghchi. But losing the right to enrich at all “is not negotiable,” he said.
