After Rome talks, Tehran says Iran and US ‘to start designing framework’ for nuclear deal
Third round of negotiations to be held in Oman next week; Iranian FM says he and Trump’s envoy Witkoff ‘managed to reach a better understanding on a series of principles and goal’
ROME — A second round of negotiations between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program ended Saturday after several hours of talks, Iranian and American officials said.
There was no immediate US readout on how the talks went at the Omani Embassy in Rome’s Camilluccia neighborhood. A convoy carrying US envoy Steve Witkoff left as Iranian state television announced the talks’ conclusion, with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi leaving a few minutes later.
“Today, in Rome over four hours in our second round of talks, we made very good progress in our direct and indirect discussions,” a Trump administration official later told The Times of Israel.
“We agreed to meet again next week and are grateful to our Omani partners for facilitating these talks and to our Italian partners for hosting us today,” the official added.
Araghchi earlier told Iranian state television that talks were “moving forward” after a positive meeting.
“It was a good meeting, and I can say that the negotiations are moving forward. This time we managed to reach a better understanding on a series of principles and goals,” he said.
He said the next round of talks would be held next weekend in Oman.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement,” Araghchi said.
Oman’s foreign ministry confirmed the upcoming talks in Oman’s capital, Muscat, saying in a statement that they “aim to seal a fair, enduring and binding deal which will ensure Iran completely free of nuclear weapons and sanctions, and maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy.”
According to Araghchi, only the nuclear issue was raised by the American side during the discussions in Rome, despite analysts’ expectations the US would try to broach other topics.
“The Americans have not raised any issues unrelated to the nuclear topic so far,” Araghchi told the Tasnim news agency.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, meanwhile, said after Saturday’s negotiations that Iran “will continue the path of the talks with seriousness” to see crippling economic sanctions on his country lifted.
“Iran will continue as far as talks go on in a constructive and purposeful way,” he added in remarks to state TV.
Iranian officials described the talks as indirect, like those last weekend in Muscat with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi shuttling between them in different rooms.
“These talks are gaining momentum and now even the unlikely is possible,” al-Busaidi said on X.
A US official also confirmed the talks ended, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door negotiations.
That talks are even happening represents a historic moment, given the decades of enmity between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis. US President Donald Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, setting off years of attacks and negotiations that failed to restore the accord that drastically limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Talks come as tensions rise in the Mideast
At risk is a possible American or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, or the Iranians following through on their threats to pursue an atomic weapon. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East have spiked over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and after US airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels killed more than 70 people and wounded dozens more.
“I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Friday. “I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Araghchi met Saturday morning with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani ahead of the talks with Witkoff.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, also met Tajani on Saturday. Grossi’s agency would likely be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached, as it did with the 2015 accord Iran reached with world powers, including the US.
Tajani said Italy was ready “to facilitate the continuation of the talks even for sessions at the technical level.”
A diplomat deal “is built patiently, day after day, with dialogue and mutual respect,” he said in a statement.
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer was also in Rome on Saturday and was spotted at the same hotel where Witkoff is staying. It was unclear whether that was a coincidence, and there was no indication Dermer was part of the Iran talks.
Dermer, a top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin, and Mossad chief David Barnea held talks Friday with Witkoff in Paris.
Araghchi, Witkoff both traveled ahead of talks
Both men have been traveling in recent days. Witkoff had been in Paris for talks about Ukraine as Russia’s full-scale war there grinds on. Araghchi will be coming from Tehran, Iran, after a visit to Moscow, where he met with officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia, one of the world powers involved in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal, could be a key participant in any future deal reached between Tehran and Washington. Analysts suggest Moscow could potentially take custody of Iran’s uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Oman’s capital hosted the first round of negotiations between Araghchi and Witkoff last weekend, which saw the two men meet face to face after indirect talks. Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has long served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
Ahead of the talks, however, Iran seized on comments by Witkoff first suggesting Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67%, then later saying that all enrichment must stop. Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote on X before the talks that Iran would not accept giving up its enrichment program like Libya, or agreeing to using uranium enriched abroad for its nuclear program.
“Iran has come for a balanced agreement, not a surrender,” he wrote.
Iran’s team in #Rome with full authority for a deal based on 9 principles: seriousness, guarantees, balance, no threats, speed, removal of sanctions, rejection of the Libya/UAE model, containing troublemakers (like Israel), and investment facilitation. Not to yield.
— علی شمخانی (@alishamkhani_ir) April 19, 2025
Iran seeks a deal to steady a troubled economy
Iran’s internal politics are still inflamed over the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, with women still ignoring the law on the streets of Tehran. Rumors also persist that the government is potentially increasing the cost of subsidized gasoline in the country, which has sparked nationwide protests in the past.
Iran’s rial currency plunged to over 1 million to a US dollar earlier this month. The currency has improved with the talks, however, something Tehran hopes will continue.
Meanwhile, two used Airbus A330-200 long sought by Iran’s flag carrier, Iran Air, arrived at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport on Thursday, flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed. The planes, formerly of China’s Hainan Airlines, had been in Muscat and re-registered to Iran.
The aircraft have Rolls-Royce engines, which include significant American parts and servicing. Such a transaction would need approval from the US Treasury given sanctions on Iran. The State Department and Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran could purchase new aircraft and had lined up tens of billions of dollars in deals with Airbus and Boeing Co. However, the manufacturers backed away from the deals over Trump’s threats to the nuclear accord.
Iran claims that its nuclear program does not serve military purposes, yet it has enriched uranium to levels that are only necessary for assembling an atomic bomb. For decades, the Islamic Republic has vowed to destroy the State of Israel.
The Times of Israel Community.