Iran and the United States made modest progress during talks in Rome over the future of Iran’s nuclear program, an intermediary said on Friday after the fifth round of discussions.
The two sides met for a little less than three hours and had “some but not conclusive progress,” Oman’s foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, said in a cautiously optimistic message on social media. His country has mediated the talks.
“We hope to clarify the remaining issues in the coming days,” he added.
The main issue in the latest round of talks was Washington’s demand that Iran halt all uranium enrichment and dismantle all of its centrifuges. Iran has insisted it will not give up the right to enrich uranium at lower levels, as guaranteed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
President Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is trying to find a formula that works, and the fact that the talks did not break up in acrimony was viewed as positive. It also suggests that Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister and Mr. Witkoff’s counterpart in the discussions, will need to consult with his country’s leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, over how to proceed.
Still, it was clear that the core disagreement over enrichment had not been resolved. The negotiators are trying to break this deadlock so they can draw up the outlines of an agreement that technical teams can then fill out with details.
If a deal can be struck on the principles, a full agreement will have to cover complicated issues like the phasing of sanctions relief in return for specific steps by Iran to dilute or export its highly enriched uranium, or even to dismantle its extensive enrichment infrastructure.
That would take time, so there is also talk of a possible interim arrangement. If the principles can be agreed on, and while the details are negotiated, Iran might stop enriching uranium in return for some immediate sanctions relief.
A statement by a senior American official said, “We made further progress, but there is still work to be done.”
What happened in previous talks?
Mr. Trump aims to prevent Iran from ever obtaining nuclear weapons. Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Both Iran and the United States have said they want to resolve the decades-old dispute, with Tehran limiting its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of U.S. and international economic sanctions.
In Oman on May 11, Iran proposed the creation of a joint nuclear-enrichment venture involving Arab countries and American investment as an alternative to Washington’s demand that it dismantle its nuclear program, according to four Iranian officials familiar with the plan.
Mr. Araghchi proposed the idea, originally floated in 2007, to Mr. Witkoff, according to the Iranian officials. They asked not to be named because they were discussing sensitive issues.
A spokesman for Mr. Witkoff denied that the proposal had come up. But since then, Mr. Witkoff has outlined a harder administration position.
“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again, that’s our red line,” Mr. Witkoff said in an interview this month with Breitbart News. “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.”
Even if the United States prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons, other concerns include Iran’s advanced missile program, its support of proxy militias around the Middle East and its hostility to Israel.
Iran has said its defense and missile capabilities have not been and will not be raised in these negotiations.
What’s at stake?
The talks have the potential to reshape regional and global security by reducing the chance of a U.S.-backed Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and preventing Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.
A deal could also transform Iran’s economic and political landscape by easing American sanctions and opening the country to foreign investors.
Iran has been enriching uranium to around 60 percent purity, just short of the level needed to produce a weapon. It has amassed enough to build up to seven bombs if it chooses to weaponize, according to the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The I.A.E.A. says it has not found signs of weaponization.
If its nuclear facilities were attacked, Iran has said it would retaliate and consider leaving the U.N. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Iran’s economy and the future of its 90 million people are also on the line.
Years of sanctions have led to chronic inflation, exacerbated by economic mismanagement and corruption. Many Iranians say they feel trapped in a downward spiral and hope a nuclear deal would help.
What are the sticking points?
A big one is the question of whether to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium.
Mr. Witkoff had earlier described a possible agreement that would allow Iran to enrich uranium at the low levels needed to produce fuel for energy, along with monitoring. But he now says that total dismantlement of the enrichment program is the American bottom line.
That would appear to negate Iran’s proposal of the three-country nuclear consortium, in which Iran would enrich uranium to a low grade, beneath that needed for nuclear weapons, and then ship it to certain Arab countries for civilian use, according to Iranian officials and news reports.
Iranian officials have said they are willing to reduce enrichment levels to those specified in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama administration — 3.67 percent purity — around the level needed to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested that Iran could have a civilian nuclear program without enriching uranium domestically by importing it, as other countries do.
How did we get here?
The previous deal between Iran, the United States and other world powers, signed during the Obama administration, put measures in place to prevent Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program by capping enrichment of uranium, transferring stockpiles of enriched uranium to Russia and allowing monitoring cameras and inspections by the I.A.E.A.
Mr. Trump unilaterally exited the deal in 2018. European companies then pulled out of Iran, and banks stopped working with Iran, fearing U.S. sanctions. About a year after Mr. Trump left the agreement, Iran, not seeing any financial benefits, moved away from its obligations and increased its levels of uranium enrichment, gradually reaching 60 percent.
The Iranians may be attempting a replay. The deal with the Obama administration was preceded by an agreement in principle that served as an outline for the final accord two years later.
Trump administration officials initially rejected this approach, saying it would take too long. But as the administration has come to see the complexities of what it hopes to achieve, such a preliminary accord might help forestall Israel’s threats of military action.
What comes next?
Both sides have agreed to meet again in the near future.
But a deal is not necessarily around the corner. The sides have to break the impasse over enrichment. And talks could still break down at the technical level, which was the most challenging part of previous negotiations.
