Iranian Foreign Minister to visit Moscow ahead of second Iran-US meeting

DUBAI - Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Russia this week, ahead of a planned

second round of talks between Tehran and Washington

aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West. 

Mr Araqchi and US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Mr Steve Witkoff, held talks in Oman on April 12, during which Omani envoy Badr al-Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.

Both sides described the talks in Oman as positive, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters that the meeting “was aimed only at setting the terms of possible future negotiations”. 

The second round of the nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington will be held in Muscat on April 19, Iran’s state news agency IRNA on April 14 quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

Earlier that day, Italian news agency Ansa reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Mr Araqchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held “soon” in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.

Tehran has approached the talks warily, doubting the likelihood of an agreement and suspicious of Mr Trump, who has threatened to bomb Iran if there is no deal. 

Washington aims to halt Tehran’s sensitive uranium enrichment work, which is regarded by the US, Israel and European powers as a path to nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear programme is solely for civilian energy production. 

Mr Baghaei, the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Mr Araqchi will “discuss the latest developments related to the Muscat talks” with Russian officials.

Moscow, a party to Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact, has supported Tehran’s right to have a civilian nuclear programme.     

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on vital state matters, distrusts the US, and Mr Trump in particular.

But Mr Khamenei has been forced to engage with Washington in search of a nuclear deal, due to fears that public anger at home over economic hardship could erupt into mass protests and endanger the existence of the clerical establishment, four Iranian officials told Reuters in March.

Tehran’s concerns were exacerbated by Mr Trump’s speedy revival of his “maximum pressure” campaign when he returned to the White House in January.

During his first term, Mr Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers in 2018 and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

Since 2019, Iran has far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on uranium enrichment, producing stocks at a high level of fissile purity, well above what Western powers say is justifiable for a civilian energy programme and close to that required for nuclear warheads. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has raised the alarm regarding Iran’s growing stock of 60 per cent-enriched uranium, and reported no real progress on resolving long-running issues, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces at undeclared sites. 

IAEA head Rafael Grossi will visit Tehran on April 16, Iranian media reported, in an attempt to narrow gaps between Tehran and the agency over unresolved issues. 

“Continued engagement and cooperation with the agency is essential at a time when diplomatic solutions are urgently needed,” he said on social media platform X on April 14. REUTERS