Israeli Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad Director Barnea traveled to Paris for a meeting with White House Envoy Steve Witkoff on Friday ahead of the nuclear talks with Iran in Rome on Saturday, Axios correspondent Barak Ravid cited three Israeli sources as saying.
Iran’s intelligence minister said the country follows a strategy of responding to threats with threats, in the face of pressure from its enemies, including the United States and Israel.
“Our approach, and that of the Iranian people, is to respond to threats with threats,” Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib said during a visit to North Khorasan province late Thursday.
He accused Israel and the US of supporting attacks in Gaza and Lebanon, and said Iran’s military and intelligence coordination had helped maintain national stability.
Khatib also warned against overreliance on diplomacy, saying the country’s strength lies in domestic capabilities. “The enemy failed in its maximum pressure campaign, and now it has turned to indirect talks,” he said.
His remarks follow recent comments by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who called for military readiness and internal resilience in response to foreign threats.
Iran is receiving contradictory and conflicting messages from the United States, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a military ceremony in Moscow, Araghchi said it is unclear what the US intends with its signals. “What they mean and what goals they pursue is their own issue,” he said.
“What matters for us is what is said at the negotiating table,” Araghchi said, adding that Iran has clearly stated its position and expects the other side to show the same seriousness and consistency.
He also noted that Russia, China, and other countries have expressed readiness to help facilitate progress in the negotiations.
Iran proposed a three-stage plan to the US delegation during talks in Oman on Saturday envisioning a cap on their uranium enrichment in exchange for the lifting of US sanctions, three diplomatic sources in Tehran told Iran International.
The plan was presented by Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi in writing to US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff during the three-hour talks.
Tehran proposed that in the first stage, it would temporarily reduce its uranium enrichment level to 3.67% in exchange for access to financial assets frozen by the United States and permission to export its oil, the diplomatic sources told Iran International.
In the second phase, the sources added, Iran would permanently end high-level enrichment and restore the United Nations nuclear watchdog's inspections if the United States lifts further sanctions on Iran and persuades Britain, Germany and France to refrain from triggering the so-called snapback of UN sanctions on Tehran.
In this phase, Iran would also commit to implementing the Additional Protocol, a supplementary agreement that allows the UN nuclear watchdog to carry out surprise inspections at sites not declared to the agency.
The third and final stage calls for the US congress to approve the nuclear agreement and for Washington to lift both primary and secondary sanctions, while Iran would transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpiles to a third country.
US envoy Witkoff welcomed the proposals presented by the Iranian side, the sources told Iran International, surprising the Iranian delegation in Muscat.
