Iran on Monday confirmed reports of indirect talks with the US in Oman, but denied it was interested in an interim deal with Washington.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani thanked Oman for the mediation efforts, but added Iran is not interested in an interim agreement and would only consider a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.
“We consider the other things that are said as media speculations. We would not confirm anything as negotiation for an interim deal,” he said, according to the Iranian Tasnim news agency.
Kanaani added that a return to the deal was only one of the issues being discussed and insisted that any agreement would need to include sanctions relief.
His comments come after Barak Ravid of Axios reported that Brett McGurk, US President Joe Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, took a low-profile trip to Oman in May for talks with Omani officials on possible diplomatic outreach to Iran regarding its nuclear program.
Axios had previously reported that the Biden administration discussed with its European and Israeli partners a possible proposal for an interim agreement with Iran that would include some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran freezing parts of its nuclear program.
The 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers hit a snag in 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump pulled out of the deal and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Iran, in turn, began to scale back its compliance with the deal.
Attempts by the Biden administration to negotiate a return to the deal with Iran have failed, as US officials blamed Iran's insistence on the closure of the UN nuclear watchdog's investigations against it.
Despite recent indications that Washington and Tehran are headed towards a new agreement, both sides denied last week that such a deal was near.