Iran says US must accept domestic enrichment for nuclear talks to succeed

The messaging was unlikely to be accidental, as Friday prayer sermons are drafted by a central headquarters overseen directly by the office of Ali Khamenei and distributed nationwide to imams, often a day in advance.

In Mashhad, Ahmad Alamolhoda, Khamenei’s representative in the city, told worshippers that negotiations conducted “with weapons and warplanes hanging over the table” were part of “America’s political game,” dismissing the process as futile.

In Rasht, Rasoul Falahati said Iranian negotiators would not retreat “a single step.” In Karaj, Hossein Hamedani warned that “trusting the enemy is a strategic mistake,” while in Isfahan, Ahmad Mahmoudi said Iran’s adversaries were frustrated because “their hands have been cut off from Iran’s resources.”

None of the sermons struck an optimistic note.

Military officials reinforced the message, with army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia asserting that Iran had “easy access to US bases” in the region. If war broke out, he warned, “its scope will engulf the entire geography of the region.”

The same line was echoed by senior lawmaker Fada Hossein Maleki, who described the talks as part of Washington’s pressure campaign.

“We are not optimistic about these negotiations, given the previous history of talks and the recent US military deployment to the region,” he told the news website Didban Iran on Friday.

“When they bring their military to our region, they are placing a gun to Iran’s head and calling it negotiation,” he added, stressing that many members of parliament shared his pessimism.

A sharply different view came from Iran’s moderate camp.

Fayyaz Zahed, a former adviser to President Masoud Pezeshkian who resigned over what he described as mismanagement in the presidential office, predicted that Tehran would ultimately be forced to make sweeping concessions.

Speaking to Khabar Online hours before the Muscat talks began, Zahed said Iran would have to hand over its stockpile of enriched uranium and freeze enrichment for an extended period. “Anything else would make entering negotiations pointless,” he said.

Zahed, however, holds no official role in the negotiations, and his remarks stood in contrast to the line coming from clerical, military, and conservative political institutions that dominate decision-making in Tehran.

Maleki’s defiant tone underscored that divide, echoing the skepticism voiced from Iran’s pulpits and military platforms earlier in the week.

“Iran is not like Venezuela, which announces its readiness to negotiate the moment the US fleet approaches its shores,” Maleki said—suggesting that even as diplomats engaged across the table in Oman, the political establishment at home was preparing the public for talks that fail, or for confrontation that follows.

While Iran’s foreign minister is right now visiting Oman for bilateral talks with the United States, in Tehran’s calculus, negotiations now promise steady erosion. War, by contrast, offers a chance – however risky – to reset the balance.

This marks a shift from the Islamic Republic’s long-standing view of war as an existential threat. Today, senior decision-makers appear to believe that controlled confrontation may preserve the system in ways diplomacy no longer can.

That belief explains why war is no longer unthinkable in Tehran, but increasingly framed as a viable instrument of rule.

At the core of this shift lies a stark assessment: the negotiating table has become a losing field.

This is not because an agreement with Washington is impossible. It is because the framework imposed by the United States and its allies has turned diplomacy into a process of cumulative concession.

When nuclear limits, missile restrictions, regional influence, and even domestic conduct are treated as interlinked files, Iranian leaders see talks not as pressure relief, but as strategic retreat without credible guarantees of survival.

From Tehran’s perspective, diplomacy no longer buys time. It entrenches vulnerability.

In that context, confrontation begins to look less like recklessness and more like a way out of a narrowing corridor.

War as a domestic instrument of control

Why war? Because war is the one scenario in which the Islamic Republic believes it does not necessarily lose.

Domestically, the regime faces its most severe legitimacy crisis in decades.

Widespread repression, the killing of protesters, economic collapse, and a society increasingly resistant to fear-based governance have eroded the state’s traditional tools of control.

Under these conditions, war serves a powerful political function. It rewrites the rules of governance.

In wartime, dissent can be reframed as collaboration with the enemy. Protest becomes sabotage. Opposition becomes a national security threat.

Emergency logic compresses public space and legitimizes measures that would provoke backlash in peacetime.

For the Islamic Republic, war is not primarily imagined as a catastrophe imposed from outside. It is a mechanism that restores hierarchy, discipline, and fear at home.

This logic is not unique to Iran, but it has taken on renewed urgency as the Islamic Republic confronts a society it can no longer reliably intimidate into submission.

Externally, Tehran’s calculations rest on another assumption – that the United States wants to avoid a prolonged war.

The experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with Washington’s cautious posture toward the war in Ukraine, have reinforced the belief that the US lacks the political appetite for a long, grinding conflict.

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  US strikes on Iran a matter of 'when not if,' former IDF spokesman says

From Tehran’s vantage point, even a military strike would likely be limited.

Airstrikes, cyber operations, or narrowly defined attacks are forms of pressure the Islamic Republic believes it can absorb.

This feeds into a core element of Iran’s survival doctrine: without foreign ground forces, the system is not collapsible.

Military action that stops short of sustained ground involvement is therefore seen as manageable.

More than that, Iranian leaders believe escalation can be shaped by exporting costs across the region.

By threatening US allies and regional partners, Tehran calculates that a drawn-out confrontation would quickly become politically and economically unattractive for Washington.

In this reading, a limited war could push human rights concerns off the global agenda, expose divisions among Western allies, unsettle energy markets, and ultimately force a return to narrower negotiations.

This strategy, however, rests on a dangerous assumption: control.

Wars that begin with expectations of containment rarely remain contained.

In a volatile and heavily armed region, escalation chains are hard to manage, and actions Tehran defines as deterrence may be read in Washington as crossing red lines.

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  Tehran and Washington test the limits of talks without trust

Still, the trajectory is clear.

The Islamic Republic has concluded that it loses at the negotiating table, but may endure – or even regain leverage – in sustained tension.

That belief explains why war is no longer treated as a last resort, but increasingly as a calculated, if perilous, component of its survival strategy.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan worked on the framework proposal ahead of the Friday talks, The Times of Israel reported, citing two Middle Eastern diplomats.

The proposal includes a non-aggression pact under which Washington and Tehran would agree not to target one another, the report said, adding that the pact would also cover allies and Iran-backed armed groups in the region.

The framework drafted by the six countries would also address Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles and Iran-backed armed groups, according to the report.

One of the diplomats cited in the report acknowledged that binding Israel to such an agreement would be difficult.

Proposed Iran commitments

Separately, Al Jazeera reported that mediators from Qatar, Turkey and Egypt have presented Iran and the United States with a framework of key principles to be discussed in Friday’s talks, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Under that proposal, Iran would commit to zero uranium enrichment for three years, after which it would limit enrichment to below 1.5 percent, the report said.

Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium — including about 440 kilograms enriched to 60 percent — would be transferred to a third country under the framework, according to the report.

The Al Jazeera report said the proposal also includes a ban on Iran's initiation of ballistic missile attacks and a commitment by Iran not to transfer weapons or technologies to its allied armed groups in the region.

Iran and the United States have not yet reacted to these reports.

Iran’s foreign ministry said on Thursday the negotiations would focus solely on the nuclear issue, underscoring Tehran’s position that other matters — including missiles and regional activities — are off the table.

A day earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington expects talks with Iran to address a range of issues beyond the nuclear file.

“I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles. That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region. That includes the nuclear program, and that includes the treatment of their own people,” Rubio said, referring to items on the US agenda for Friday’s talks with Tehran.

The talks, originally scheduled for Friday in Istanbul with several regional countries expected to attend, were moved to Oman at Iran’s request and narrowed to bilateral discussions between Tehran and Washington.

Tehran had also reiterated its insistence on indirect negotiations, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sitting in a separate room from Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, relying on Omani mediators to shuttle messages between the two sides.

State media further reported that the talks would focus exclusively on the nuclear issue, as in previous rounds.

However, The New York Times reported on Thursday that while Iran’s nuclear program would be the main focus, the two sides agreed that negotiations would also cover missiles and Tehran’s support for militant groups.

The newspaper cited three Iranian officials and one Arab official as saying the US agreed to hold the talks in Oman and exclude regional actors, while Iranian officials agreed to face their American counterparts.

Negotiations to avoid war—or merely delay it?

While diplomats maneuver, hardliners continue to float threats of preemptive strikes on Israel and closing the Strait of Hormuz, while claiming that Iran’s military posture has forced Trump to reconsider his repeated threats of military action.

Former foreign minister and lawmaker Manouchehr Mottaki said the likelihood of a US attack has dropped “from 100 percent to around 50 percent,” attributing the change to Washington’s doubts about achieving victory.

Journalist Hossein Yazdi, however, cited three developments over the past few days—the IRGC’s harassment of a US vessel in the Persian Gulf, the US downing of an IRGC Shahed-139 surveillance drone in the Arabian Sea, and Iran’s insistence on moving talks to Oman without Arab observers—as evidence that negotiations are not serious.

“Both sides have their hands on the trigger,” he wrote.

Iran’s red lines remain intact

It remains unclear whether Iran, facing Trump’s threats and the risk of war, is willing to reconsider positions that contributed to the collapse of previous negotiations.

Conservative analyst Hossein Qatib, who has previously advocated crossing the nuclear threshold, warned against surrendering Iran’s estimated 400 kilograms of enriched uranium.

“Any decision regarding these stockpiles must be designed with maximum distrust toward the other side’s intentions,” he wrote. “Handing them over in one go—under any title—is not goodwill or strategic rationality. It is voluntary disarmament under military threat.”

Others echoed familiar red lines. Esmail Kowsari, a member of parliament’s national security committee, said Iran’s missile capabilities and regional activities are “absolutely none of America’s business.”

Former deputy speaker Ali Motahari likewise cited enrichment rights, missile range, support for the so-called Axis of Resistance, and refusal to recognize Israel as all non-negotiable.

Few expect a breakthrough

Given Iran’s insistence on these red lines, its past negotiating record, and recent mass killings of protesters that have plunged the Islamic Republic into a severe legitimacy crisis, few analysts express optimism.

Political analyst Ruhollah Rahimpour told Iran International that the Islamic Republic is, for the first time, confronting both a real external threat and a profound internal legitimacy crisis. “This combination is deadly,” he said, adding that Tehran can no longer assume it can cross Trump’s red lines and face only rhetorical consequences.

Former diplomat Nosratollah Tajik was blunt: “It is unlikely this round of mediation will go anywhere due to structural issues, the gap between goals and expectations, and the unfinished business of the previous two stages of Iran–US conflict.”

Mottaki also expressed doubt, saying: “These talks will not produce tangible results, but they may deter the US from imposing war.”

Yazdi argued there are no signs of serious negotiations, noting that Iran wants to resume narrow nuclear talks in Oman, while Trump and Israel seek far broader concessions. “From their perspective, destroyed nuclear facilities are no longer the top priority,” he wrote.

A user on X warned that failed talks would only make a Trump-led war against Iran appear more justified in the eyes of the international community.

Who really decides?

President Masoud Pezeshkian weighed in with a rare post on X on Tuesday, saying he had instructed the foreign minister to pursue talks “if there is a suitable, threat-free atmosphere.”

The wording sparked controversy, as few doubt that foreign policy is ultimately controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. A community note was even added to the post.

"The person who makes the decisions in Iran is the Supreme Leader. The President doesn't really matter," US Vice-President J.D. Vance said on Wednesday.

"The Foreign Minister seems to talk to the Supreme Leader and that's mainly the person that we've communicated with. But it's a very weird country to conduct diplomacy with when you can't even talk to the person who's in charge of the country."

Researcher Abbas Gheidari interpreted Pezeshkian’s phrase “I instructed” as an attempt to preemptively assume responsibility for a potential nuclear concession to protect Khamenei.

Vice President Jafar Ghaempanah tried to soften the debate, writing: “No war is good, and not every peace is surrender.” Some conservatives such as Abdolreza Davari read this as a sign of an imminent deal. Ultra-hardline lawmaker Mehdi Koochakzadeh, however, warned that “the peace imposed by the architects of the JCPOA will bring humiliation worse than surrender.”

Protesters’ anger and pressure on Trump

Some Iranian activists and social media users have reacted angrily to what they describe as Trump’s flexibility, saying Tehran is once again buying time.

“This is what they’ve done for nearly 30 years,” one user wrote. “Trump prioritizes extracting concessions, not regime change—otherwise he wouldn’t have stopped Israel in the 12-day war.”

One image sent by a citizen to Iran International showed graffiti reading: “President Trump: Don’t negotiate with the killers of the Iranian people.”

Throughout the day, senior officials on both sides issued sharply conflicting messages about whether talks would happen at all, where they might be held and what they would cover.

Reports citing Iranian and Western officials alternated between suggesting the process had collapsed and hinting that negotiations were imminent, reflecting what one diplomat described as “negotiations about negotiations.”

In Washington, Marco Rubio sought to project readiness while acknowledging deep skepticism.

“I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things,” Rubio said, casting doubt on whether diplomacy would succeed at all.

“I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys,” he added. “But we’re going to try to find out.”

Rubio’s Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, said Tehran was “fully ready” for talks, but only within a narrow framework focused on Iran’s nuclear program.

As officials sparred in public, reports surfaced of intense behind-the-scenes haggling over venue and format.

Turkey was first cited as a possible location, then ruled out, before Oman re-emerged — with Araghchi posting on X that talks would be held in Muscat on Friday at 10 a.m. local time.

Hovering over the diplomatic back-and-forth were stark warnings from President Donald Trump, who adopted an increasingly explicit tone in remarks to NBC News.

Asked whether Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, should be concerned, Trump replied: “I would say he should be very worried, yeah. He should be.”

Trump also claimed that the United States had uncovered plans for a new Iranian nuclear facility and had issued a direct threat in response.

Iran was “thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country,” he said. “We found out about it. I said, you do that, we’re gonna do really bad things to you.”