Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and American Special Envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff began a fifth round of “indirect” talks regarding Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program in Rome on Friday.
The talks, an initiative President Donald Trump first announced in April, are meant to contain Iran’s illicit nuclear enrichment and prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, according to American officials. The Iranian government has repeatedly claimed that the objective of the talks is to convince Washington to lift sanctions on the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism. At press time, the talks have resulted in the Trump administration imposing more sanctions on Iran’s oil industry rather than lifting any existing sanctions.
The first four rounds of talks occurred in Muscat, Oman, mediated by the Omani government. Early reports suggested that the Iranian team insisted on the Omanis passing notes back and forth between delegations, a way for Iranian “supreme leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to keep to his promise not to engage in “unintelligent and dishonorable” talks with America in February. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi will also reportedly mediate the talks on Friday, though they are taking place in Italy.
Iranian state media outlets emphasized that Araghchi insisted he would not seek any compromise on limiting Iran’s nuclear enrichment during the talks, a key American demand.
“What they’re basically asking is to be the only non-weapon country in the world that’s enriching uranium,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio observed in an interview with Fox News in early May. “They have to walk away from sponsoring terrorists, they have to walk away from helping the Houthis, they have to walk away from building long-range missiles that have no purpose to exist other than having nuclear weapons, and they have to walk away from enrichment.”
“These are not unreasonable requests. There are countries all over the world that have nuclear energy and don’t enrich and don’t have long-range missiles and don’t sponsor terrorism,” he emphasized.
In a recent interview with Breitbart News prior to the fourth round of talks, Witkoff similarly insisted that uranium enrichment was a “red line” in negotiations for the U.S. team.
“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line,” Witkoff asserted. “No enrichment. That means dismantlement, it means no weaponization, and it means that Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan — those are their three enrichment facilities — have to be dismantled.”
Araghchi insisted in a message posted to social media before his departure to Rome that ending enrichment was not an option for Iran.
“Figuring out the path to a deal is not rocket science: Zero nuclear weapons = we DO have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal,” Araghchi wrote.
Similarly, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei issued a statement on Friday asserting that Iran’s enrichment was “the result of years of resistance by a nation that has endured great hardships to achieve it,” the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) relayed.
“He said that the nation takes pride in the achievement and expects its representatives to remain steadfast in defending its rights and interests,” IRNA summarized.
IRNA also reported that, in a separate social media post, Baqaei condemned Rubio for his department imposing new sanctions on Iran’s oil industry, alongside the American Department of the Treasury. Sanctions imposed following the fourth round of talks targeted corporations accused of obscuring the origin of Iranian oil shipped to China to avoid already existing sanctions on the rogue regime’s oil business.
“Marco Rubio’s State Department hit a new low in American long history of unlawful coercive & hostile measures against the Iranian nation by further expanding their unlawful sanctions to construction sector and home building. That’s as outrageous as it is unlawful and inhuman,” Baqaei complained.
Despite Iran’s overt intransigence, the State Department indicated this week that it believed that the ongoing talks were productive.
“The fifth round of the nuclear talks would not be happening if we didn’t think that there was potential [to reach a deal],” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said on Thursday, according to the Emirati newspaper The National. “I would say that clearly we believe that we are going to succeed.”
In contrast, Khamenei lamented on Tuesday that he did not believe the talks would lead anywhere: “I don’t think nuclear talks with the US will bring results.”
The tone out of Iran changed significantly in the past week. As recently as Sunday, Araghchi had written social media posts online claiming that “a deal is within reach,” but only if American officials abandoned their determination to ensure that Iran did not continue its illicit uranium enrichment program, which has no scientific reason to continue if Iran only wants to develop civilian nuclear technology.
“If the US is interested in ensuring that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, a deal is within reach, and we are ready for a serious conversation,” Araghchi said on Sunday. “Enrichment in Iran, however, will continue with or without a deal.”
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