As the U.S.-Iran agreement talks continue, Iran has called on the U.S. to drop its “excessive demands” to succeed in reaching a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.
According to a report by the Iranian Students’ News Agency, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, made the remarks on a phone call with Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty.
Without revealing the demands he was referring to, Araghchi told Abdelatty that “success on this path requires seriousness and realism on the part of the other side and avoidance of any miscalculation and excessive demands."
Following the negotiations in Geneva on Feb. 26, Araghchi shared with state television that the talks "made very good progress and entered into the elements of an agreement very seriously, both in the nuclear field and in the sanctions field.”
Araghchi additionally revealed that the next round of talks will be conducted in "perhaps less than a week," with negotiations also taking place in Vienna on Mar. 2 between technical teams.
The negotiation talks in Geneva, mediated by Badr Al Busaidi, Oman’s Foreign Minister, come after President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to strike Tehran, additionally conducting its largest military build-up in the Middle East in decades.
On Feb. 26, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. negotiating team’s demands include urging Iran to take down its three main nuclear sites and to turn in all of its remaining enriched uranium.
"We have finished the day after significant progress in the negotiation between the United States and Iran," Al Busaidi wrote in a post on X.
"It concluded with the mutual understanding that we will continue to engage in a more detailed manner on matters that are essential to any deal -- including sanctions termination and nuclear-related steps," Araghchi also shared on X, deeming the latest negotiations as “the most intense so far.”
Iran has previously stated that it was not going to initiate a war, but that it was capable of retaliation if attacked, threatening to attack U.S. military bases in the region.
