Is A US-Iran Nuclear Deal Coming Soon? – OpEd

April 23, 2025April 23, 2025 Tarique Niazi 0 Comments

The second round of Iran-U.S. talks on April 19 has successfully concluded in Italy. The Omani embassy in Rome hosted the talks, which went on twice as long as those held in Oman on April 12. Most importantly, Iran and the United States have agreed to a third round of discussions on April 26. Before this third round there will be a meeting of experts from both countries to discuss nuclear de-escalation, uranium enrichment, verification mechanisms, and the lifting of economic sanctions.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that both sides agreed to ensure that Iran is “completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy.”

This second round was preceded by intense rhetoric on both sides. Iran’s supreme leader deflated the hopes of success in the talks, while President Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff asked Iran to “dismantle” a nuclear program that it considers its red line.

The talks did not, however, reach a dead end. It is common for negotiators to take maximalist positions to appease different constituencies before they even sit around the negotiating table. The first round of Iran-U.S. talks already defied gloomy predictions when it successfully took place on April 12 in Muscat, Oman. The host Sayyid Badr al Busaidi, Oman’s foreign minister, treated both Iranian and U.S. delegations at his residence to the centuries-old Arab tradition of hospitality.

Seated in separate rooms in the minister’s house, the delegates conducted four rounds of talks. As a go-between, al Busaidi delivered and redelivered communications that lasted two-and-a-half hours. In the Iran-U.S. context, the duration of communication is of special significance. Two estranged nations, talking to each other through an intermediary, would not have communicated that long had they not found common ground. Also, they agreed to communicate in writing, which allowed both sides to read, unfiltered, each other’s intents and purposes. To avert the pitfalls of mistranslation, both sides consented to converse and write in English.

At the end of the talks, the hosts were overjoyed, both delegations were all smiles, and Tehran and Washington echoed each other in describing the talks as “positive” and “constructive.” As a further indication of progress, both delegations agreed to the second round of talks. Most important of all, the Iranian delegation and its leader Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, broke an almost 50-year-old taboo by exchanging greetings with the U.S. delegation and its leader Steve Witkoff.

Only weeks into his job, Steve Witkoff is already a familiar face from Eurasia to the Middle East. He arrived in Oman the night before the talks from his trip to Russia, where he had an hours-long meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The Iranian delegation, led by Araghchi, arrived on Saturday. Wendy Sherman, former deputy secretary of state, who negotiated with Araghchi, found him a smart and tough negotiator. Although the substance of the first round of talks is not yet known, both sides have reportedly laid out their positions. The United States hewed to nuclear de-escalation and Iran emphasized the lifting of economic sanctions. Later, Tehran confirmed that the two parties “exchanged the positions of their respective governments” on Iran’s nuclear program and on sanctions.

These positions echo the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which traded nuclear de-escalation for sanctions relief. The JCPOA indeed began to achieve those ends: Iran’s nuclear program was out in the sun and economic sanctions were fast easing. Another unique feature of JCPOA was its signatories, which included the P5+1 (Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States), the European Union, and Iran. In addition, the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary General, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and an array of other international institutions were directly involved in implementing JCPOA.

This geopolitical heft made the execution of JCPOA a smooth affair, at least until 2018 when President Trump pulled out of the agreement. With the U.S. exit, the remaining signatories could neither unsanction Iran nor hold it to nuclear de-escalation. In its own interest, Iran did reach out to non-U.S. signatories to salvage the pact, but the agreement suffered from benign neglect. Eventually, Iran abandoned its commitment to nuclear rollback, and the JCPOA expired.

Trump has set a two-month deadline to clinch a new deal. But it’s unclear what the contents of this deal will be, and it’s also hard to imagine that the current talks will birth what Trump promises to be a “stronger” agreement by mid-June. The two-month deadline is not just Trump’s attempt to hurry the deal. Iran is even more impatient to wrap up the talks as fast as possible. After the face-to-face in Oman, Araghchi told Iranian state TV: “Neither we nor the other side are interested in fruitless negotiations… “talks for the sake of talks,” wasting time, or drawn-out, exhausting negotiations.” He further said that Americans also wanted to reach an agreement in the shortest possible time. “However, that will certainly not be an easy task,” he cautioned. In the interest of time, it seems likely to have a reprise of JCPOA.

Trump may simply adopt the main features of JCPOA in order to a quick deal. A senior administration U.S. official said: “Iran would be eager to jump back into something like JCPOA.” The key irritant, however, is Iran’s nuclear program. It dominated the first round of talks, and it will be at the heart of the second round as well. Iran is adamant about continuing to harness nuclear technology for agriculture, energy, industry, and medicine. It maintains that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows for the peaceful use of nuclear technology. The Trump administration, however, wants to stop Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. But this leaves the door ajar to civilian use of nuclear technology under a UN monitoring system as was the case in JCPOA. Iran may accept this position.

Iran’s economy, battered by retributive sanctions, needs to come out of the shadows. Iran and its people deserve to live in a normal country. President Trump goes even further to say: “I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon.” Iran has always accepted this condition for lifting economic sanctions, and President Masoud Pezeshkian seems determined to see this deal through.

Those who dismiss Iran’s elected leadership as mere figureheads, with religious authorities holding the real power, should think again. The hard-liners who adhere to the religious authorities’ conservatism believe that the current talks are just a ruse to render Iran defenseless. But the reformist leadership under President Pezeshkian, who defeated hardline conservative Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has successfully convinced religious authorities to negotiate a deal with the United States. But much depends on Trump and his ability to restrain Israel from preemptively attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.