The Iranian Foreign Ministry on Friday pledged to give high-level nuclear talks with the United States this weekend a “genuine chance” to succeed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the talks would take place on Saturday in Oman.
The road to talks in Oman began last month, when President Donald Trump sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for negotiations, and warning of dire consequences if diplomacy failed.
Khamenei and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi publicly rejected Trump’s call, claiming they remained committed to “diplomacy” but saw no reason to talk with a country that “constantly threatens to resort to force in violation of the U.N. Charter.”
Trump then made a surprise announcement Monday that U.S. and Iranian representatives would meet in Oman for the talks Tehran claimed it wasn’t interested in having.
“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 said after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office.
Araghchi confirmed that the talks were on, and Iranian state media soon reported that Araghchi himself would be there, negotiating with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff while Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi mediated.
“We intend to assess the other side’s intent and resolve this Saturday. In earnest and with candid vigilance, we are giving diplomacy a genuine chance,” an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday.
“Without threats and intimidation from the American side, there is a good possibility of reaching an accord. We reject any bullying and coercion,” added Deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-e Ravanchi.
Khamenei adviser Ali Shamkhani said Iran would bring “important and practical” proposals to the meeting.
“If Washington comes to the talks with sincere intentions and genuine will to reach an agreement, the path to a deal will be clear and smooth,” he said.
Rubio said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday that the administration hopes the Oman talks will “lead to peace.”
“We’ve been very clear what Iran is never going to have a nuclear weapon, and I think that’s what led to this meeting,” he said.
The U.S. and Iranian sides disagree about whether these talks will be “direct,” as Trump insists.
The Iranians were reportedly thinking about keeping the delegations from Washington and Tehran in separate rooms and speaking solely through Oman’s mediators, but U.S. officials said on Thursday that the two delegations would meet in the same room.
“Indirect” talks were held several times under the Biden administration and went nowhere despite Biden’s palpable eagerness to resurrect former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from during his first term.
France24 on Friday quoted Iranian officials who continued to insist the talks would be “indirect,” and said Araghchi was not authorized to communicate with Witkoff directly. Since Trump is sending his personal envoy Witkoff to the meeting, he seems unlikely to settle for passing messages through Oman’s diplomats as they scurry from room to room, unless the result is productive.
Iran has not maintained formal diplomatic relations with the United States since 1980, which is a major reason why the Iranians keep insisting on the “indirect talks” framework. The Swiss embassy in Tehran was the primary intermediary for U.S.-Iranian communications for many years.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) senior fellow Behnam Ben Taleblu told Fox News Digital that the disputes over direct vs. indirect talks are “the negotiations before the negotiations.”
“Both sides have an incentive to either overrepresent or underrepresent what is happening,” he said.
As for leverage, Ben Taleblu noted that Washington is running out of time in several respects – Iran is accumulating a dangerous stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium, and the “snapback sanctions” Trump triggered by withdrawing from the nuclear deal in 2018 are set to expire in 2025, putting the second Trump administration back to square one on sanctions.
Iran, on the other hand, is clearly weakened by the misadventures of its terrorist proxies since Hamas attacked Israel in 2023. Trump has assets in place for a bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, and the Israelis have demonstrated utter superiority over Iran’s air defenses.
“The [Iranian] regime is engaging, now, to delay and prevent a military option from ever materializing. They are hoping to use talks with the Americans as a human shield against the Israelis. So long as you’re talking to America, the Israelis aren’t shooting at you,” Ben Taleblu said.
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