Oman minister presented US nuke deal proposal, will respond: Iran Foreign Minister Araqchi

TEHRAN(Iran): Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi has announced that his Omani counterpart Badr Al Busaidi to Tehran, during his visit to Tehran, has presented the elements of the US proposal to Iran for a nuclear deal between the two countries, state media reported.

“My dear brother @badralbusaidi, distinguished Foreign Minister of Oman, paid a short visit to Tehran today to present elements of a US proposal which will be appropriately responded to in line with the principles, national interests and rights of the people of Iran,” Araqchi wrote in a post on his X account.

According to the official news agency IRNA, Iran and the US have held five rounds of talks — three in Muscat and two in Rome–mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Al-Busaidi. The talks sought to replace the agreement that President Donald Trump withdrew the US from during his first term in office.

As per a report in Al Jazeera, the IAEA in a confidential report that has been seen by several agencies, said that as of May 17, Iran had amassed 408.6kg (900.8 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60 percent – the only non-nuclear weapon state to do so, according to the UN agency – and had increased its stockpile by almost 50 percent to 133.8kg since its last report in February.

Iranian foreign minister Araqchi on Saturday strongly rejected Western demands for Iran to abandon uranium enrichment, calling them an effort to impose dominance over the Iranian nation, IRNA reported.

“When the other parties say you must not have enrichment, they are essentially trying to assert a kind of dominance and superiority over us,” he said. “Under international law, we have the same right as any other country to benefit from peaceful nuclear technology, including enrichment.”

Earlier, in a May 22-dated letter addressed to the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN Security Council President Evangelos C Sekeris, and the IAEA. Chief Rafael Grossi, Araqchi, warned that any Israeli adventurism targeting Iran’s nuclear sites would be met with a decisive response, as has been the case in the past. The Iranian foreign minister cited a CNN report from May 20, 2025, which quoted U.S. officials alleging that the Israeli regime was preparing an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Araqchi also emphasised that Israel’s nuclear program presents a serious threat to global security, urging the international community to exert pressure on the Israeli regime to dismantle its nuclear arsenal and commit to disarmament agreements.

Washington maintains that Iran’s uranium enrichment programme could lead to developing nuclear bombs, while Tehran has consistently denied the claim, insisting that its nuclear programme is meant for civilian purposes.

In July 2015, the Iran nuclear agreement- known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed between Iran and several world powers, including the United States, which capped Tehran’s enrichment level at 3.67 per cent and reduced its uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms.

The deal collapsed in 2018 with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of the US from the accord. Since then, Iran has started exceeding agreed-upon limits to its stockpile of low-enriched uranium in 2019, and began enriching uranium to higher concentrations up to 60 per cent purity, which is very close to the weapons-grade level. (ANI)