Iran confirms next round of nuclear talks with US set for Rome on Saturday | Nuclear Energy News

The announcement comes as chief of nuclear watchdog IAEA arrives in Tehran for talks that may revolve around accessibility for inspectors.

Iran has confirmed that its next round of nuclear talks with the United States this weekend will be held in Rome after earlier confusion over where the negotiations would be conducted.

Wednesday’s announcement on Iranian state television came as Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian formally approved the resignation of one of his vice presidents, who had served as Tehran’s key negotiator in its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, also arrived in Tehran on Wednesday for talks that could include negotiations over what access his International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors can get under any proposed deal.

The state TV announcement said Oman will again mediate the talks on Saturday in Rome. Oman’s foreign minister served as an interlocutor between the two sides during negotiations last weekend in Muscat, the Omani capital.

On Monday, some officials initially identified Rome as hosting the negotiations, only for Iran to insist early on Tuesday that its team would return to Oman. US officials so far have not said publicly where the talks will be held, though US President Donald Trump did call Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq on Tuesday while the ruler was on a trip to the Netherlands.

The negotiations come amid soaring tensions between the US and Iran over the latter’s nuclear development.

Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash air strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear programme if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly have warned that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.

‘Like a puzzle’

Grossi arrived in Tehran for meetings with Pezeshkian and others, which will likely be held on Thursday.

Shortly before his arrival, Grossi warned that Iran was “not far” from possessing a nuclear bomb.

“It’s like a puzzle. They have the pieces, and one day they could eventually put them together,” Grossi told French newspaper Le Monde in an interview published on Wednesday.

“There’s still a way to go before they get there. But they’re not far off, that has to be acknowledged,” he said.

Since the nuclear deal’s collapse in 2018 with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of the US from the accord, Iran has abandoned all limits on its programme, and enriches uranium to up to 60 percent purity – near weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.

Surveillance cameras installed by the IAEA have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the Vienna-based agency’s most experienced inspectors. Iranian officials have also increasingly threatened that they could pursue atomic weapons, something that Western countries and the IAEA have been worried about for years.

Any possible deal between Iran and the US likely would need to rely on the IAEA’s expertise to ensure Tehran’s compliance. And despite tensions between Iran and the agency, its access has not been entirely revoked.

‘Non-negotiable’

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday warned the US about taking contradictory stances in the talks.

His remarks came after comments from US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who this week initially suggested a deal could see Iran go back to 3.67 percent uranium enrichment – like in the 2015 deal reached by the administration of former US President Barack Obama. Witkoff then followed up by saying, “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal.”

“Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponisation program,” Witkoff wrote on the social platform X. “It is imperative for the world that we create a tough, fair deal that will endure, and that is what President Trump has asked me to do.”

In response, Araghchi issued a warning to the US.

“Enrichment is a real and accepted issue, and we are ready for trust-building about possible concerns,” Araghchi noted. But losing the right to enrich at all “is non-negotiable”, he said.