Iran-US nuclear talks: What’s at stake?

Iran and the United States made modest progress during talks in Rome over the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, an intermediary said Friday after the fifth round of such discussions.

The two sides met for a little less than three hours and had “some but not conclusive progress,” Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al Busaidi said.

The fifth round of Iran-US talks concluded in Rome with some but not conclusive progress. We hope to clarify the remaining issues in the coming days, to allow us to proceed towards the common goal of reaching a sustainable and honourable agreement. From Rome, I wish to thank our Italian friends for hosting us again for the talks and for their strong support for peace and security,' he said.

The main issue at stake in the latest round of talks was Washington’s demand that Iran halt all nuclear enrichment and dismantle all of its centrifuges. Iran has insisted that it will not give up the right to nuclear enrichment at lower levels as guaranteed by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, is trying to find a formula that works, and the fact that the talks did not break up in acrimony was viewed as positive. It also suggests that Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister — Witkoff’s counterpart in the discussions — will need to consult with Iran’s leadership over how to proceed.

Araghchi said that “this round was one of the most professional stages of negotiations that we have experienced so far,” according to the Tasnim news agency. “Our positions are completely clear and we stand by them,” he said, adding: “It seems that now there is a clearer and more precise understanding of these positions on the American side.”

A senior American official said in a statement that “the talks continue to be constructive — we made further progress, but there is still work to be done.” Both sides agreed to meet again soon, the official said.

Still, it was clear that the core disagreement over enrichment had not been resolved. Both Iran and the United States have said they want to resolve their decades-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities, with Tehran exchanging limits on its nuclear program for the lifting of harsh U.S. and international economic sanctions.

Here’s what to know about the Iran-U.S. nuclear talks so far.

What happened in previous talks?

At the previous round of talks, in Oman on May 11, Iran proposed the creation of a joint nuclear-enrichment venture involving regional Arab countries and American investments as an alternative to Washington’s demand that it dismantle its nuclear program, according to four Iranian officials familiar with the plan.

Araghchi proposed the idea, originally floated in 2007, to Witkoff, according to the Iranian officials.

A spokesperson for Witkoff denied that the proposal had come up. But since then, Witkoff has outlined a harder administration position.

“An enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again, that’s our red line,” Witkoff said in an interview this month with Breitbart News. “No enrichment. That means dismantlement, it means no weaponization, and it means that Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan — those are their three enrichment facilities — have to be dismantled.”

Earlier meetings included the nuts-and-bolts expert talks, which brought together nuclear and financial teams from both sides to hash out technical details, such as the monitoring of Iran’s nuclear facilities and what would happen to its stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, along with easing sanctions.

Trump has defined the objective of the negotiations as preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But achieving that goal would not address other concerns about Iran’s advanced missile program.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghai, has said that the issue of the country’s defense and missile abilities had “not been and will not be raised in indirect negotiations with the United States.”

What’s at stake?

The talks have the potential to reshape regional and global security by reducing the chance of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities and preventing Iran from producing a nuclear weapon.

A deal could also transform Iran’s economic and political landscape by easing American sanctions and opening the country to foreign investors.

Both the United States and Israel have vowed that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon; Iran insists that its nuclear program is civilian only.

But Iran has been enriching uranium to around 60% purity, just short of the levels needed to produce a weapon.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and the IAEA has said it has not found signs of weaponization.

If its nuclear facilities are attacked, Iran has said it would retaliate fiercely and would consider leaving the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Iran’s economy and the future of its 90 million people are also on the line.

Years of sanctions have created chronic inflation. Now, many Iranians say they feel trapped in a downward spiral and hope that a US-Iran deal would help.

What are the sticking points?

The question of whether to allow Iran to continue enriching uranium has divided Trump’s advisers.

Witkoff had earlier described a possible agreement that would allow Iran to enrich uranium at the low levels needed to produce fuel for energy, along with monitoring. But he now says that total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is the American bottom line.

Iran’s new proposal entails the establishment of a three-country nuclear consortium in which Iran would enrich uranium to a low grade, below that needed for nuclear weapons, and then ship it to certain Arab countries for civilian use, according to the Iranian officials and news reports.

Iranian officials have said they are willing to reduce enrichment levels to those specified in the 2015 nuclear agreement with the Obama administration — about 3.5% — around the level needed to produce fuel for nuclear power plants.

But in a recent podcast interview, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that Iran could have a civilian nuclear program without enriching uranium domestically — by importing enriched uranium, as other countries do.

How did we get here?

The two sides came into the negotiations with deep distrust.

The previous deal between Iran and the United States and other world powers, signed during the Obama administration, was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

It put measures in place to prevent Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program by capping enrichment of uranium at about 3.5%, transferring stockpiles of enriched uranium to Russia, and allowing monitoring cameras and inspections by the IAEA.

Trump unilaterally exited the nuclear deal in 2018. European companies then pulled out of Iran, and banks stopped working with Iran, fearing US sanctions.

About a year after Trump left the agreement, Iran, not seeing any financial benefits, moved away from its obligations and increased its levels of uranium enrichment, gradually reaching 60%.

What comes next?

Iran’s supreme leader authorized the talks and said the negotiating team has his support.

But a deal is not necessarily around the corner. The two sides have to find a way out of their impasse over enrichment.

And talks could still break down at the technical level, which was the most challenging part of the previous negotiations.

It is also possible that an interim deal could be reached to freeze uranium enrichment while a permanent deal is hashed out.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.