DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP):- Iran’s top diplomat was traveling Sunday from Tehran to Geneva, where the second round of nuclear negotiations with the U.S. will take place, Iranian state media reported.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation left for the Swiss city after the first round of indirect talks took place in Oman last week. Oman will mediate the talks in Geneva, the IRNA state-run news agency reported on its Telegram channel.
Similar talks last year broke down after Israel launched what became a 12-day war on Iran, that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites.
U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to agree to constrain its nuclear program. Iran has said it would respond with an attack of its own. Trump has also threatened Iran over its deadly crackdown on recent nationwide protests.
Gulf Arab countries have warned that any attack could spiral into another regional conflict.
The Trump administration has maintained that Iran can have no uranium enrichment under any detail, which Tehran says it will not agree to.
Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but officials however have increasingly threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Before the war in June, Iran has been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, just a short technical step away from weapons-grade levels.
Araghchi is also expected to meet with his Swiss and Omani counterparts, as well as the director general of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Earlier on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington remains interested in a diplomatic solution to ending its differences with Tehran, and that President Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were currently traveling for the new round of talks.
Trump said Friday the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, was being sent from the Caribbean to the Mideast to join other military assets the U.S. has built up in the region. He also said a change in power in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen.”
Rubio said recent military deployments in the Middle East were a protective measure aimed at shoring up the defenses of U.S. facilities and interests. Iran has threatened to attack U.S. bases in the region if Washington decides to strike. Tehran in June attacked the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, though no American or Qatari personnel were harmed.
“No one’s been able to do a successful deal with Iran, but we’re gonna try,” said Rubio at a news conference after meeting with Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in Bratislava. “We are focused on negotiations.” Trump in recent weeks has suggested that his priority is for Iran to scale back its nuclear program, while Iran has said it wants talks to solely focus on the nuclear program. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier this week met with Trump in Washington, has been pressing for a deal that would neutralize Iran’s ballistic missile program and end its funding for proxy groups such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The Israeli prime minister said in a speech Sunday that any deal between the U.S. and Iran must make sure that “all enriched material has to leave Iran.”
It remains unclear how much influence Netanyahu will have over Trump’s policy on Iran. Trump initially threatened to take military action over Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month, but then shifted to a pressure campaign in recent weeks to try to get Tehran to make a deal over its nuclear program. ___ Associated Press writers Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed to this report.