The US is willing to hold talks with Iran, but for discussions to be meaningful they must cover issues that Tehran has previously said are off the table, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
It was a day of uncertainty as to whether the US and Iran would try to defuse a crisis led by Tehran's brutal clampdown on protesters. The US military has sent warships and missile-defence systems into the region ahead of potential strikes.
Mr Rubio said that for any talks to be fruitful they would have to include limiting the range of Iran's ballistic missiles, its “sponsorship of terrorist organisations across the region”, its nuclear programme and its treatment of its own people.
Tehran has repeatedly rejected such demands and it briefly appeared on Wednesday that the talks had collapsed. However, a White House official told The National that planning for talks was resumed following lobbying by several Arab and Muslim leaders.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on X that nuclear talks will take place in Oman, beginning on Friday morning.
Mr Aragchi's brief statement notably only referred to "nuclear talks" and did not reference any of the other issues raised by Mr Rubio.
Iran's semi-official Isna news agency reported the negotiations would adopt a format similar to the rounds last year that were mediated by Oman and held in its capital, Muscat, and at the Omani embassy in Rome.
The participation of US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner in the new talks is “being considered”, the news agency said.
Both sides expressed willingness to negotiate after an exchange of threats and warnings in recent weeks that raised fears of a wider regional conflict.
Mr Trump initially threatened to attack Iran if the government used violence to suppress protests that began in late December and rapidly spread across the country.
As the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike force arrived in the region last week, he suggested Iran would face an attack if it did not quickly agree to negotiations on a deal to contain its nuclear programme.
Mr Trump on Tuesday confirmed US-Iran nuclear talks were set to continue, but declined to say where they were being held.
“They would like to negotiate, we are negotiating with them right now,” he told journalists in the Oval Office. “There's more than one meeting.”
Mr Witkoff and Mr Araghchi were previously expected to resume nuclear negotiations in Istanbul on Friday, with Mr Kushner present.
However, Iran had sought to change the venue and format of the talks, a regional diplomatic source told The National earlier on Wednesday.
“The Iranians want to change the agenda, participants, and the venue of the meeting,” the source said. “So basically, this is altogether a different meeting they are talking about now. They want to show that this is a new round of the previous nuclear talks in Oman."
The regional source, and sources in Cairo, said representatives from Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been expected to attend the talks in Istanbul.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei warned on Wednesday that “the location and the timing of the meeting should not be a tool for media play”.
Turkey, Oman and “some other countries in the region” had expressed readiness to host the talks, Mr Baghaei said, according to the Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Mr Araghchi held phone calls on Tuesday night with officials in Turkey, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan, Iran's Foreign Ministry said.
