US and Iran Conclude Second Round of Nuclear Talks, Agree to Third

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Iran’s foreign minister and US envoy agreed to a third round of talks aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran and the US have concluded their second round of talks aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear weapons development and agreed to hold a third one next week.

Iranian Foreign President Abbas Aragut and President’s envoy Steve Witkov held a second round of consultations in Rome on April 19th.

Similar to the first round talk held last week in Muscat’s Omani capital, the pair negotiated indirectly through Omani officials who closed their message between the two.

Witkoff and Araghchi interacted temporarily at the end of the first round of consultations, but officials from both countries have not negotiated directly under President Barack Obama since 2015.

The pair agreed to meet again on Saturday in Oman on April 26th. Additional experts from both sides will also be meeting up during that time now.

According to Iran, experts will discuss details of possible transactions at the technical level.

“The discussions take place in a constructive environment and we can say that it is moving forward,” Araguc told Iranian state television. “We hope we are in a better position after technical consultations.”

The High Stakes rely heavily on Witkov and Aragut’s ability to find a common foundation on Iran’s nuclear program and regional security issues.

Araghchi said that prior to talks that Tehran is committed to diplomacy, he called for “all political parties involved in the consultation to seize the opportunity to reach a rational and logical nuclear deal.”

“An agreement like this should lead to the lifting of unfair sanctions on the state while respecting Iran’s legitimate rights and dealing with suspicions regarding its nuclear activities,” Aragucci said, according to Iran’s national media.

Tehran tried to curb expectations of a quick deal, but Iran’s top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said this week that he was “not overly optimistic or pessimistic.”

Focusing on Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities

It is unclear what the current outline of the negotiations are. Iranian officials said last week that the first round of talks will focus on laying out the red lines with the positions of each party.

That’s why US President Donald Trump has prevented the acquisition of nuclear weapons Tehran from being a priority for his foreign policy platform. He appears willing to enable Middle Eastern countries to maintain nuclear facilities.

“I’ve been very simply stopping me from having nuclear weapons,” Trump told White House reporters on Friday. “They can’t have nuclear weapons. (But) I want Iran to be great, prosperous and wonderful.”

Trump first wrote to Khamenei in March, proposing a new contract to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Since then, Trump has doubled his stance that the US “can’t have (Iran) nuclear weapons” and threatened to use military action against Iran if it doesn’t reach a deal.

“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombings and bombing things they’ve never seen before,” Trump wrote in a social media post on March 30.

Trump also re-imagined sanctions against Tehran as part of a broader effort to restore the “maximum pressure” campaign in Tehran in February and push Iran to the negotiation table.

Tehran has no nuclear weapons, and as Trump unilaterally terminated the bilateral nuclear agreement in 2018 and placed restrictions on such activities, it continues to enrich uranium at levels close to weapons grade. At the time, Trump criticized the deal as “one of the worst and most one-sided deals the United States has ever signed,” saying it “given too much to the Iranian regime if it was too little.”

A report released at the beginning of the year by the UN nuclear watchdog agency suggests that Iran has accelerated production of nearby grades of uranium to the extent that Tehran is likely to produce around half a dozen warheads if it were to choose.

Tehran claims that the nuclear program is peaceful and willing to negotiate several curbs in exchange for lifting sanctions, but hopes to ensure a close-up of water that Washington will not revive again.

46 years of hostility

Overcoming the historical hostility of Washington and Tehran is no easy task. The relationship between the two forces has been hostile for almost half a century.

Iran was once one of the top US allies in the Middle East. Iranian monarchies purchased American-made weapons and were seen by American leaders as an authoritarian yet modern force that provided a breakwater against the spread of communism.

That relationship ended in 1979 when Iran’s last ruling monarch fled the state amid a mass uprising and power was seized by Islamic forces. Since then, Iran’s Islamic Republic has opposed secular modernism associated with the United States and sought the destruction of the Israeli state.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have almost reached a breakpoint in recent years, partly due to Iran’s financial and military support for terrorist groups, including Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houtis in Yemen.

Tehran has also signed extensive military technical agreements with Russia in recent years, and has implemented oil service deals with China, which skirts international sanctions. However, it is unclear how heavy these issues will be in the current lecture.