Iran and the United States will hold more negotiations next week over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, Iranian state television reported Saturday at the end of the first round of talks between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
American officials offered no immediate comment on the talks. However, Iran’s state-run broadcaster revealed that U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “briefly spoke” together — the first time the two nations have done that since the Obama administration.
Tehran likely speeded out its public announcement ahead of a possible Trump post on a social media. But declaring that the two sides spoke face-to-face — even if briefly — suggests the negotiations went well even to Iranian state TV, which long has been controlled by hard-liners. Araghchi announced the next round would take place Saturday, April 19.
This first round of talks began at around 3:30 p.m. local. The two sides spoke for over two hours at a location in the outskirts of Muscat, Oman’s capital, ending the talks around 5:50 p.m. local time. The convoy believed to be carrying Witkoff returned to Muscat before disappearing into traffic around a neighborhood that is home to the U.S. Embassy.
The stakes of the negotiations couldn’t be higher for the two nations closing in on half a century of enmity. Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear program if a deal isn’t reached. Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
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Talks took place Saturday afternoon in Oman
Associated Press journalists saw a convoy believed to be carrying Witkoff leave the Omani Foreign Ministry on Saturday afternoon and then speed off into the outskirts of Muscat. The convoy went into a compound and a few minutes later, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei wrote on the social platform X that the “indirect talks” had begun.
Afterward, Araghchi described the meeting as constructive to Iranian state TV, with four rounds of messages exchanged during the indirect portion.
“Neither we nor the other side are interested in fruitless negotiations — so-called ‘talks for the sake of talks,’ wasting time, or drawn-out, exhausting negotiations,” he said. “Both sides, including the Americans, have said that their goal is also to reach an agreement in the shortest possible time. However, that will certainly not be an easy task.”
That the two men spoke face-to-face satisfied a demand of the Americans. Trump and Witkoff both had described the talks as being “direct.”
“I think our position begins with dismantlement of your program. That is our position today,” Witkoff told The Wall Street Journal before his trip. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that at the margin we’re not going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries.”
He added: “Where our red line will be, there can’t be weaponization of your nuclear capability.”
Araghchi, however, sought to downplay the encounter as “a brief initial conversation, greetings and polite exchanges” — likely to avoid drawing the anger of hard-liners in Iran.
Badr al-Busaidi, Oman’s foreign minister who shuttled between the two sides, said the countries have a “shared aim of concluding a fair and binding agreement.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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