But Oman, which mediated the Geneva talks, offered a much rosier picture and said that Iran had agreed to zero stockpiling of any uranium, making moot the question of the level of enrichment.
Iran also agreed to degrade current stockpiles into fuel, said Oman’s foreign minister, Badr Albusaidi, who was in Washington meeting US Vice-President JD Vance.
“If the ultimate objective is to ensure forever that Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb, I think we have cracked that problem through these negotiations by agreeing a very important breakthrough that has never been achieved any time before,” Albusaidi told CBS News programme Face the Nation.
“If we can capture that and build on it, I think a deal is within our reach,” he said, estimating that three months would be needed to finalise an accord.
The renewed US pressure comes weeks after Iranian authorities killed thousands of people as they crushed mass protests.
As Washington mobilises forces, Trump said “nobody knows” if a US attack would bring down the Iranian Government.
Iran agreed to restrictions to low-level enrichment in a 2015 deal that Trump ripped up during his first term in office.
In June Trump had said Iran’s key nuclear sites had been “obliterated” after the United States joined a major Israeli bombing campaign on the country.
Rubio heads to Israel
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Israel for talks on Iran on Tuesday, the State Department said.
In a rare break from decades of precedent, the top US diplomat will travel without reporters on his plane.
Rubio’s trip comes as the US embassy announced it was allowing non-emergency government personnel and family members to leave Israel “due to safety risks”.
In a new advisory, Germany said it “urgently” discouraged travel to Israel.
Britain said it was moving diplomatic staff out of Tel Aviv, Israel’s economic hub where most countries maintain embassies, to another location in the country as a “precautionary measure”.
China, a main partner of Tehran, called on its citizens to evacuate Iran “as soon as possible”.
Issues beyond nuclear
In his State of the Union address on Wednesday, Trump alleged Iran was developing missiles that could strike the United States.
Rubio later said it would be a “very big problem” for Iran if it does not discuss its missiles. Iran has insisted that the ongoing talks focus on the nuclear issue.
Increasing pressure, Rubio todaydesignated Iran a state sponsor of wrongful detentions, a new blacklist, over jailings of US citizens.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today said “success in this path requires seriousness and realism from the other side and avoidance of any miscalculation and excessive demands”.
UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed it would hold technical discussions with Iran on Tuesday.
The agency called on Iran to co-operate with it “constructively”, according to a confidential report seen by AFP.
In their capital Tehran, ordinary Iranians expressed distrust of the United States and hoped negotiations would lead to economic relief for their sanctions-hit nation.
“Whatever the outcome of the negotiations ... it should lead to some improvement in people’s economic situation. Not just a little – it is our right,” Ali Bagheri, 34, told AFP.
Hamid Beiranvand, 42, said Iran should “not give any concessions” as Washington “breaks promises” – but that “everyone prefers that a war doesn’t happen”.
– Agence France-Presse
