Tehran’s FM Abbas Araghchi confirms to media that the next round of talks in Oman on Sunday will not go ahead.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has confirmed to media that the next round of Iran-United States nuclear negotiations, scheduled for Sunday in Oman, has been cancelled.
Asked on Saturday, “Can we have a clear confirmation that Sunday’s talks are cancelled?”, Araghchi responded, “Yes”.
Shortly after that, Oman also confirmed the talks “will not now take place”.
Earlier, Iran had clearly intimated that the continuation of nuclear talks with the US was unjustifiable while “barbarous” Israeli attacks target the nation, Iranian state media reported, quoting Araghchi.
It seemed inevitable that the talks would fall victim to the sudden, massive escalation by Israel and Iran’s retaliation.
Tehran branded dialogue over its nuclear programme with the US as “meaningless” after Israel launched its biggest-ever military strike against Iran, which Tehran accuses Washington, DC, of supporting.
“The other side [the US] acted in a way that makes dialogue meaningless. You cannot claim to negotiate and at the same time divide work by allowing the Zionist regime [Israel] to target Iran’s territory,” Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency quoted Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei as saying on Saturday.
The US has denied the Iranian allegation of being complicit in Israel’s attacks and told Tehran at the United Nations Security Council that it would be “wise” to negotiate over its nuclear programme.
The sixth round of US-Iran nuclear talks was set to be held on Sunday in Oman.
Iran denies that its uranium enrichment programme is for anything other than civilian purposes, rejecting Israeli allegations that it is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Netanyahu has pledged to continue the attacks for “as many days as it takes” to stop Iran from developing a “nuclear threat”.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he had warned Iran’s leaders that “it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come”.
“And they [Israelis] know how to use it,” he added.
Trump has blamed Iran for rejecting US proposals on uranium enrichment and has warned of more brutal Israeli strikes ahead.
Mousavi said the mood in Iran is “pretty defiant” and does not seem to support the Israeli goal of a regime change in Tehran.
“The Israelis were really expecting some sort of protest or riots in the Iranian capital by the Iranian people. That hasn’t happened so far. We don’t know if it’s going to happen in the future, but the mood right now is actually pretty defiant. I don’t really see that many Iranians sympathising with the Israelis.”
