President Donald Trump on Tuesday said 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."
In response to a question about where the meetings would be held, he answered: "I can't tell you that."
Earlier on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said US Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff would lead the talks and push for a diplomatic resolution, although the US President will continue to maintain a "range of options", including the use of military force.
"These talks as of right now are still scheduled," Ms Leavitt told reporters. "President Trump is always wanting to pursue diplomacy first, but obviously it takes two to tango – you need a willing partner to achieve diplomacy."
A regional source told The National that Mr Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Mr Trump's son-in-law, were expected to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Istanbul on Friday.
The regional source, as well as sources in Cairo, said representatives from Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were also expected to attend.
But reports late on Tuesday said Iran was pushing for changes to the format. Sources told Reuters and Axios that Iran wanted the talks to move from Turkey to Oman, and without the Arab and Muslim countries.
There was no immediate confirmation from Iran, which says it is willing to re-enter nuclear talks. Ms Leavitt did not say where talks would take place.
Oman was a mediator in several rounds of negotiations last year that failed to reach a settlement before the US and Israel attacked Iran in June.
The initial plan was that "senior US and Iranian officials are to meet in Turkey this week, amid efforts by regional and Middle Eastern powers to steer negotiations as an alternative to military confrontation", a regional source said.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday said he had instructed Mr Araghchi to carry out negotiations "provided that a suitable environment exists – one free from threats and unreasonable expectations".
Tension is running high amid a US naval build-up near Iran, after a crackdown against anti-government demonstrations last month, the deadliest domestic unrest in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Mr Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene during the crackdown, has since demanded that Tehran make nuclear concessions and has sent warships to its coast. He said last week that Iran was “seriously talking”, while Tehran's senior security official Ali Larijani said arrangements for negotiations were under way.
Asked on Monday about the prospect of a deal, Mr Trump told reporters that talks were happening.
“We have ships heading to Iran right now, big ones – the biggest and the best – and we have talks going on with Iran and we'll see how it all works out … if we can work something out, that would be great and if we can't, probably bad things would happen.”
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Mr Trump had demanded three conditions for resumption of talks: no enrichment of uranium in Iran; limits on Tehran's ballistic missile programme; and an end to its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long rejected all three demands as unacceptable infringements of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its clerical rulers saw the ballistic missile programme, rather than uranium enrichment, as the bigger obstacle.
Preparation for talks
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran was considering “the various dimensions and aspects of the talks”, adding that “time is of the essence for Iran as it wants the lifting of unjust sanctions sooner”. Turkey and other regional allies have sought de-escalation.
Mr Witkoff, who led the American negotiating team in talks with Iran last year, was due to arrive in Israel on Tuesday. Israel's military chief was reportedly in the US for high-level meetings on Iran over the weekend.
Mr Trump initially threatened to use military force against Iran as reports emerged of the crackdown on anti-government protests last month and of impending executions of detained demonstrators. Activists outside the country put the death toll so far at about 6,500 people, most of them protesters. They are investigating reports of thousands more killings.
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group arrived in the Middle East in the middle of last week amid renewed threats of action unless Iran returns to negotiations over a nuclear deal.
On Friday, Mr Trump said Iran does “want to make a deal”. Iran has taken a tough stance as the threat of US strikes looms, saying it would respond to a new US attack with “all-out war”.
White House correspondent Jihan Abdalla contributed to this report from Washington
