Iran's foreign minister to head to Russia before second round of U.S. talks begins

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will visit Russia this week ahead of a planned second round of talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at resolving Iran’s decades-long nuclear stand-off with the West.

Araghchi and U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, held talks in Oman on Saturday, during which Omani envoy Badr al-Busaidi shuttled between the two delegations sitting in different rooms at his palace in Muscat.

Both sides described the talks in Oman as positive, although a senior Iranian official told Reuters the meeting “was only aimed at setting the terms of possible future negotiations.”

The second round of the nuclear talks between Tehran and Washington will be held in Oman’s Muscat on Saturday, Iran’s state news agency IRNA on Monday quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei as saying.

Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran last year.Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty ImagesEarlier on Monday, Italian news agency ANSA reported that Italy had agreed to host the talks’ second round, and Iraq’s state news agency said Araghchi told his Iraqi counterpart that talks would be held “soon” in the Italian capital under Omani mediation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/irans-foreign-minister-russia-second-us-talks-trump-rcna201275

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