US envoy Steve Witkoff is because of start talks with Iran’s prime diplomat on Saturday because the Trump administration pushes for a deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear programme and ease a disaster that dangers triggering the Center East’s subsequent battle.
The negotiations between Witkoff and Iranian international minister Abbas Araghchi in Oman are thought-about an essential first step in making an attempt to resolve the long-running stand-off over Tehran’s aggressive nuclear advances amid the specter of US or Israeli navy strikes towards its nuclear amenities.
However they face enormous hurdles because the international locations harbour deep mistrust for one another and have broadly differing expectations about what might be acceptable. Earlier than talks had even begun, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned that his feeling was “they’re not going alongside effectively” including: “If it requires navy, we’re going to have navy.”
Trump is believed to need a deal that will result in Iran agreeing to dismantle its uranium enrichment programme, with a US official saying the “objective is to cease and eradicate Iran’s nuclear enrichment”.
That could be a crimson line for Iran’s supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who insists Tehran — at its most weak in a long time after Israeli strikes towards it and its proxies final yr and with an economic system strangled by sanctions — won’t be bullied right into a deal.
As a substitute, Tehran needs an settlement just like the moribund accord it signed with the Obama administration and different world powers in 2015, wherein it agreed to strictly restrict enrichment in return for sanctions reduction.
The adversaries couldn’t even agree on the format of the negotiations, with Trump saying they might be direct earlier than Iran insisted they might be held not directly.
Dan Shapiro, a former senior US diplomat and defence official, mentioned it might be “terribly difficult to attain an settlement that meets the normal US check of guaranteeing Iran can’t obtain a nuclear weapon sooner or later”.
“That might require dismantlement of all of Iran’s enrichment functionality, the export of its enriched uranium stockpile and extremely intrusive inspections with no sunsets,” he mentioned. “There’s no signal that Khamenei could be prepared to just accept these phrases.”
With Trump but to call his Iran staff, Witkoff — who’s already concerned in efforts to dealer a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, and Washington’s bid to safe the discharge of Israeli hostages held in Gaza — will characterize the US.
The true property investor-turned-diplomat has largely operated alone throughout his mediation efforts on the battle in Gaza, travelling with out an entourage and sometimes sitting in conferences on his personal, in accordance with an individual acquainted with his position in that disaster.
His counterpart, Araghchi, is a veteran of the nuclear talks that led to the 2015 accord, often known as the JCPOA.
Underneath that deal, Iran was in a position to enrich uranium at low ranges — no larger than 3.67 per cent purity with its stockpile of enriched uranium capped at 300kg.
The JCPOA collapsed after Trump, who was deeply vital of the deal, withdrew the US in his first time period and imposed a whole lot of sanctions on Iran as a part of a “most strain” marketing campaign.
Tehran responded by rising nuclear exercise, with its stockpile of enriched uranium now greater than 8,200kg. It has been enriching uranium as much as 60 per cent, which is near weapons grade, and now has the capability to supply enough fissile materials for a number of bombs inside weeks.
The advances have added to the sense of urgency for a deal. But it surely additionally signifies that securing an settlement is much extra advanced than when the JCPOA was signed.
Hamid-Reza Taraghi, a hardline Iranian politician, mentioned Tehran would use the talks to reiterate to the US that it had no intention of buying nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, he added that stopping Iran from enriching uranium for civilian functions was “non-negotiable”.
Tehran was getting into the talks with “full mistrust”, he added, however wished to exhibit “that we aren’t against dialogue”.
“Our previous expertise suggests such negotiations will yield no tangible outcomes as a result of the US seeks a lose-win end result moderately than a good, win-win settlement,” Taraghi mentioned.
Diplomats acquainted with the back-channel messaging between the US and Iran — by means of Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — say one choice to enhance the prospects of the talks could be for Trump to unlock $6bn of Iranian oil cash held in accounts in Doha.
Iran was supposed to have the ability to entry the funds — frozen throughout Trump’s first time period — as a part of a prisoner-swap take care of the Biden administration in September 2023.
One of many diplomats mentioned Tehran had instructed Qatar in February that Iran would solely comply with direct talks if the cash had been launched. One other mentioned unfreezing the $6bn could be “vital for belief constructing”.
Sanam Vakil, director of the Center East and north Africa programme at Chatham Home think-tank, mentioned given the dimensions of the gaps and mistrust, a lot may depend upon what incentives Trump could also be prepared to supply.
“They [Iran] wish to present they’re on comparatively equal grounds so they should exhibit they’ve extracted one thing from Trump,” she mentioned. “The talks are nearly inconceivable . . . it’s going to take time for the Trump administration to ship one thing significant.”
But it surely’s not Trump’s “model to supply carrots early within the talks”, Shapiro mentioned. “Meaning a choice on a navy strike may come later this yr.”
Witkoff may also be coping with a regime that has a repute for dragging out negotiations. However Iran is aware of the clock is ticking. “It’s type of a now or by no means second, however is the [Iranian] system going to buckle?” Vakil mentioned.
Extra reporting by Man Chazan
