US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Rome with Policy Planning Director Michael Anton on Friday for a fifth round of nuclear talks with Iran.
As before, the discussions are expected to be mostly indirect, although there may be direct talks as well.
The negotiations are stuck on the issue of uranium enrichment: The US is determined to ensure Iran cannot enrich uranium at all, due to its history of enriching the nuclear fuel to a level close to weapons-grade.
Iran is insisting it has the right as a sovereign nation to continue to enrich uranium as it pleases and is refusing to dismantle the centrifuges used for that purpose.
Earlier this week Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a speech that he does not believe the talks will succeed.
President Donald Trump said on the final day of his visit to the region that a written proposal for a deal was delivered to Tehran, and that it is in Iran’s best interest to accept it, “quickly.” The president added that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon; ensuring that will never happen, he said, can either be done “nicely” or “not nicely.”
