- Tensions rose after anti-government protests in Iran.
- The meeting was moved to Oman because Iran demands bilateral talks.
- Iran wants talks to focus only on its nuclear program.
Meaningful talks between the United States and Iran will have to include Tehran's missile arsenal and other issues, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday, as Tehran vowed to only discuss its nuclear program, not its missiles.
Talks between the countries amid fears of a military confrontation are planned for Friday, and Iran is pushing to restrict negotiations to discussing its long-running nuclear dispute with Western countries.
Differences over the scope of the talks and a lack of agreement on the location raised questions about whether the meeting would go ahead as planned, leaving open the possibility that US President Donald Trump could make good on his threat to attack Iran.
“If the Iranians want to meet, we are ready,” Rubio said. But he added that talks would have to include the range of Iran's ballistic missiles, its support for groups across the Middle East and its treatment of its own people, in addition to the nuclear dispute.
However, a senior Iranian official said the talks would only focus on Iran's nuclear program and that its missile program was “off the table.” A second senior Iranian official said the US insistence on discussing non-nuclear issues could jeopardize talks Tehran wants to hold in Oman.
Talks may move to Oman
The meeting was originally scheduled for Turkiye, but a Gulf official, another regional official and media affiliated with the Iranian state said the talks were expected to take place in Oman.
Rubio said US envoy Steve Witkoff was prepared for talks but that the venue was “still being worked out” after Iran had previously agreed to a particular format.
But axios It later reported, citing two U.S. officials, that the United States told Iran on Wednesday that it will not accept Tehran's demands to change the location and format of the talks.
US officials considered the request to change the venue, but then decided to reject it. axios saying. “We told them it was this or nothing, and they said, 'Okay, then nothing,'” said a senior U.S. official.
Iran wanted the meeting to take place in Oman as a continuation of earlier rounds of talks held in the Gulf Arab country over its nuclear program and requested a change of location from Turkiye, the regional official said.
This was to avoid any expansion of discussions to issues such as Tehran's ballistic missiles, the regional official said.
Plans for the talks, which will be mediated by several countries, are still being finalized, the Gulf official said, adding that discussions would begin on the nuclear issue and then move on to other issues step by step.
The diplomatic efforts come after Trump's threats of military action against Iran following nationwide protests last month and the deployment of more naval power to the Gulf.
After Israel and the United States bombed Iran last summer, renewed friction has raised fears among states in the region of a major conflagration that could backfire on them or cause long-term chaos in Iran.
Trump has continued to weigh the option of attacking Iran, sources say. Oil prices have risen due to the tension.
Nuclear dispute
US President Donald Trump warned that “bad things” were likely to happen if a deal could not be reached, increasing pressure on Tehran in a standoff that has led to mutual threats of airstrikes.
Iran's leaders are increasingly concerned that a U.S. attack could break their grip on power by sending an already angry public back to the streets, according to six current and former Iranian officials.
Trump, who failed to follow through on threats to intervene during last month's protests, has since demanded nuclear concessions from Iran and sent a flotilla to its coast.
Iran is also hoping for a deal that could help lift Western sanctions over its nuclear program that has devastated its economy, a major driver of last month's unrest.
Ministers from several other countries in the region, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, were expected to attend Friday's talks, but a regional source said Reuters that Tehran only wanted bilateral talks with the United States.
ballistic missile arsenal
Iranian sources said Reuters Last week, Trump had demanded three conditions for resuming talks: zero uranium enrichment in Iran, limits on Tehran's ballistic missile program and an end to its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long said the three demands are unacceptable violations of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials said Reuters Its rulers saw the ballistic missile program, rather than uranium enrichment, as the biggest obstacle.
An Iranian official said there should be no preconditions for talks and that Iran was willing to show flexibility on uranium enrichment, which it says is for peaceful, not military, purposes.
Since the US attacks in June, Tehran has said its uranium enrichment work has stopped.
In June, the United States attacked Iranian nuclear targets, joining the end of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign, and Iran responded to Israel with missiles and drones.
Iran said it replenished its missile stockpile after the war with Israel last year, warning it will use them if its security is threatened.
Adding to tensions, the US military on Tuesday shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching “aggressively” the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, the US military said, in an incident first reported by Reuters.
In another incident in the Strait of Hormuz, US Central Command said forces from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had approached a US-flagged oil tanker at high speed and threatened to board and seize it.
