Madras Times - Iran says US talks are on, as Trump warns supreme leader

Doubts have swirled about the fate of the negotiations, with a report earlier Wednesday that the talks were falling apart sending oil prices surging and increasing expectations of US military action.

But Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said nuclear talks were now scheduled for Friday in Oman. Diplomats had earlier said the meeting would happen on Friday in Turkey.

"Nuclear talks with the United States are scheduled to be held in Muscat," said Araghchi in an X post, thanking Oman "for making all the necessary arrangements".

There was no immediate confirmation from the United States.

But Trump, who has sharply built up the US military presence in the region and refused to rule out new military action, continued to up the pressure on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"I would say he should be very worried, yeah, he should be," Trump said Wednesday in an interview with US broadcaster NBC News. "As you know, they are negotiating with us."

Trump also said that Iran had eyed a new nuclear facility after US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites during Israel's June war against the Islamic republic.

"They were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country," Trump told NBC. "We found out about it, I said, you do that, we're going to do very bad things to you."

Ties between Tehran and Washington have become increasingly strained in recent weeks since Iran's clerical state violently put down some of the most serious protests against its rule since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

- 'Conflicting reports' -

Trump has sent a US aircraft carrier group -- which he calls an "armada" -- to the region and one of its planes shot down an Iranian drone on Tuesday.

Hopes of a breakthrough rose when it emerged earlier this week that Iranian and US officials were due to meet, but the talks have been dogged by uncertainty.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the United States was ready to meet Iran this week -- but insisted that discussions must cover its missile and nuclear programs.

"If the Iranians want to meet, we're ready," Rubio told reporters, but without confirming a meeting on Friday. "If they change their mind, we're fine with that too."

Rubio said that US envoy Steve Witkoff had been ready to meet with Iran in Turkey but then received "conflicting reports" on whether Tehran had agreed.

"That's still being worked out," he said of the location for the talks, speaking before the Iranian foreign minister's comments.

Iran in previous talks on its disputed nuclear program has ruled out discussions on its missiles, casting the weapons that can hit Israel as a tool of self-defense to which every country has a right.

But Iran has been under growing pressure from the protests and after an Israeli bombing campaign last year. Iran has also lost key regional allies with Israel's severe degrading of Lebanon's Hezbollah and the fall of veteran Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

X.Ranganathan--MT