DUBAI: Iranian and US negotiators resumed talks on Friday in Rome to resolve a decades-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Iranian media reported, despite Tehran warning that a new deal might not be possible amid mutually exclusive demands.

The stakes are high for both sides. President Don­ald Trump wants to curtail Tehran’s potential to produce a nuclear weapon that could trigger a reg­i­onal nuclear arms race and perhaps threaten Israel.

The Islamic Republic, for its part, wants to be rid of devastating sanctions on its oil-based economy. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were expected to lead a fifth round of talks, through Omani mediators.

“This round of talks is especially sensitive ... we need to see what issues will be raised by the other party ... and based on that, we will proceed with our positions,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told state TV in Rome.

Both Washington and Tehran have taken a tough stance in public over Iran’s intensifying uranium enrichment programme, which could potentially give it scope to build a nuclear warhead, even though Tehran says it has no such ambitions and the purposes are purely civilian.

Iran insists the talks are indirect, but US officials have said the discussions — including the latest round on May 11 in Oman — have been both “direct and indirect”.

Ahead of the talks, Araqchi wrote on X: “...Zero nuclear weapons = we Do have a deal. Zero enrichment = we do NOT have a deal. Time to decide.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday that Trump believes negotiations with Iran are “moving in the right direction”.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last say on matters of state, rejected demands to stop refining uranium as “excessive and outrageous”, warning that such talks were unlikely to yield results. .

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2025