US and Iran talks at risk of collapse after US rejects move to Oman

Talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Friday appear to be collapsing after the US rejected Iran’s request to move them from Turkey to Oman without the presence of a group of Arab states.Iran has also vowed that the talks will be confined to its nuclear programme, while other issues the US would like to discuss, such as the range of Tehran’s ballistic missile programme, will be permanently excluded.It is not clear whether the dispute can be readily resolved or if this is a piece of brinkmanship mediators can still overcome.Despite its relatively weak negotiating hand, Iran has said the only issue on the agenda can be the assurances that Tehran is willing to provide that its nuclear programme has no military purpose or objective. It says the talks must be held in Oman, where most of the previous rounds of talks were held.Iran had thought it had forced businessman Jared Kushner, who is also Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, to agree to these terms and drop the plans for the talks in Turkey. Instead, it has been reported that Witkoff will travel to Doha on Thursday and then return to Washington without meeting the Iranians. The US has a large naval fleet in the region that Trump has said he is willing to use to force the Iranians to back down.Explaining US thinking before news of the apparent collapse started to circulate, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said: “We thought we had an established forum that had been agreed to in Turkey that was put together by a number of partners who wanted to attend and be a part of it. I saw conflicting reports yesterday from the Iranian side saying that they had not agreed to that, so that’s still being worked through.”He added: “At the end of the day, the United States is prepared to engage, and has always been prepared to engage, with Iran. In order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles“That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organisations across the region. That includes the nuclear programme. And that includes the treatment of their own people.”His remarks, diplomats said, did not preclude the discussions on these topics being sequenced, as Turkey had recommended, and left an ambiguity as to what other issues might be discussed if the nuclear file is initially addressed.Iran had been hoping that the opening of the talks in Oman might lead to a broad statement by both sides to agree to negotiate and to de-escalate tensions. This would allow direct talks to start. But the US appears to be determined that its agenda and format, one that appeared to have the support of some Arab states, should prevail. The US believes that Iran is in a weak negotiating position and Tehran has badly overreached itself.No guarantee existed anyway that the nuclear file can be resolved since Iran insists it must retain its right to enrich uranium inside Iran and that there is no need for its existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium to be transferred out of the country to a third party such as Russia. On Thursday, Russia said its proposal to take the Iranian uranium stockpile still stood.Rubio added: “Iran has only shown willingness to discuss its nuclear programme, albeit not on the terms demanded by the US – for the Islamic Republic to agree not to enrich uranium on its own territory and export all of its already enriched stockpiles out of the country.” He added that the US did not see agreeing to meet the Iranians as a concession or an act of legitimisation.Tensions within Iran about its negotiating stance were reflected in criticism made by some Iranians of the aggressive posture being adopted by Ali Shamkhani, the former secretary of the supreme national security council of Iran from 2013 to 2023. He has warned that war is likely and said Iran need only reduce the purity of its uranium stock.