CNN – Delegations from Iran and the United States will meet again next week after wrapping up “constructive” nuclear talks that included the first direct contact between a Trump administration and an Iranian official, according to Iran’s state news agency.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told state media that the next round of talks will be held in Oman on April 19, adding that Saturday’s meeting “got very close” to reaching a framework for negotiations. Both sides said they are seeking an agreement in the shortest time possible, he said.
Saturday’s largely indirect talks, also held in Oman, involved US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Araghchi. The meeting took place in Omani Foreign Minister Said Badr Al Busaidi’s home in the capital Muscat, less than 10 minutes from the airport, according to a source familiar with the meeting.
During the talks, Witkoff and his team were based in a reception room to the right of the home’s grand entryway, while Araghchi and his team were in a room to the left, the source explained. The Omanis shuttled messages in English between the two sides.
After the talks ended, the two delegations spoke for just a few minutes in the marble hallway on the way out, the source said.
The meetings were held “in a constructive atmosphere based on mutual respect,” Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said.
“After more than two and a half hours of indirect negotiations, the heads of the Iranian and American delegations spoke for a few minutes in the presence of the Omani foreign minister as they left the talks,” the agency reported.
The White House also described the talks as “positive and constructive” and a “step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome.”
Witkoff “underscored to Dr. Araghchi that he had instructions from President Trump to resolve our two nations’ differences through dialogue and diplomacy, if that is possible,” the White House said in a statement.
Later Saturday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that discussions are “going OK.”
“Nothing matters until you get it done,” he said while en route to a UFC fight in Miami. “So, I don’t like talking about it. But it’s going OK. The Iran situation is going pretty good, I think.”
Saturday’s high-stakes talks to reach a new nuclear deal were foreshadowed by Trump’s threat of military strikes as a consequence of failure and Tehran’s warning any attack on it would drag the US into a broader Middle Eastern conflict.
Iran was seeking an “initial understanding” with the US that could lead to a negotiations process, Araghchi said upon arriving in Muscat.
Al Busaidi said on X that Iran and the US will begin a process aimed at reaching a “fair and binding” agreement following the meeting.
President Trump has given Tehran a two-month deadline to accept a deal that would lead to Iran shrinking its nuclear footprint or eliminating its program altogether.
“I want them not to have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be a wonderful, great, happy country, but they can’t have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on his way to Florida on Friday night.
