President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that negotiations with Iran scheduled for this week are continuing and that Tehran has signalled a willingness to act. He said the two sides are "in talks" and expressed hope for a deal, while declining to disclose venues and stressing that meetings with Iranian officials will occur more than once.
Tehran's foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that a negotiation plan has been drawn up and that talks are expected in the coming days, with consultations under way to determine the host location. Spokesman Nasser Baghaei said Turkey, Oman and a number of other regional states had offered to host the discussions, and that the venue would be announced once agreed.
Previous media reports identified a likely rendezvous on February 6 in Istanbul between U.S. presidential envoy Witkoff and Iranian foreign minister Ali Bagher Agha‑chi to discuss what both sides described as a "possible nuclear agreement." The meetings, if they take place, would be the most concrete direct diplomacy between Washington and Tehran since major ruptures over Iran's nuclear programme and regional policies in the past decade.
The talks arrive against a fraught backdrop. The nuclear deal that once constrained Iran's enrichment activities was effectively abandoned by the Trump administration in 2018, triggering years of sanctions, stepped‑up Iranian enrichment and intermittent diplomatic efforts by successive U.S. and European governments to prevent further escalation. Any new negotiation faces a deep deficit of trust and a complex set of technical, political and regional hurdles.
For Washington and Tehran the central objectives are familiar: Iran seeks sanctions relief and economic breathing space; the United States and its partners want robust, verifiable limits on uranium enrichment and a credible inspection regime. How those objectives are sequenced — whether sanctions relief comes before or after significant Iranian rollbacks — remains the key sticking point and the likely focus of any first round of talks.
Regional actors such as Turkey and Oman volunteering to host reflect their growing role as intermediaries in Middle East diplomacy and their interest in preventing a wider confrontation. At the same time, Israel and Gulf Arab states, which view Iran's nuclear trajectory and regional behaviour as existential concerns, will closely scrutinise any outcome and could complicate implementation through diplomatic pressure or covert operations.
Domestically, any progress will be politically charged on both sides. In Washington, a deal negotiated directly by President Trump could split political coalitions and face scrutiny from Congress and allied capitals. In Tehran, moderates and pragmatists may welcome relief, while hardliners will resist concessions viewed as excessive. The fragility of domestic coalitions means that even a preliminary agreement could be vulnerable to reversal.
A successful exchange of envoys and a clear plan for more substantive negotiations would lower the immediate risk of miscalculation and might open a path to an interim arrangement that pauses nuclear escalation. Conversely, collapse or public rancour around the talks would raise the odds of renewed sanctions, covert action and military risk. Either outcome will reverberate through oil markets, regional security calculations and the broader architecture of non‑proliferation diplomacy.