Talks between Iran and US will be held on Friday in Oman – Iranian media
The sultanate hosted multiple rounds of earlier nuclear talks between Iran and the US.
Talks between Iran and the US will be held on Friday in Oman, Iranian media said on Wednesday.
The semi-official ISNA and Tasnim news agencies, and the Student News Network, all reported the talks would take place.
Oman did not acknowledge that it would host the talks. The sultanate hosted multiple rounds of earlier nuclear talks between Iran and the US.
The US has also not acknowledged that the talks would take place in Oman, though the White House said it anticipated the negotiations would take place even after the US shot down an Iranian drone on Tuesday and Iran attempted to stop a US-flagged ship.
Also on Wednesday, activists said the number of arrests topped 50,000 in the government crackdown, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in other rounds of unrest in Iran.
At least 50,834 people have been arrested in connection with the Iranian government’s crackdown on protests, the activists said.
At least 6,876 people have been killed in the crackdown on the demonstrations, though there are fears many more may be dead.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll because of the sweeping internet shutdown in Iran.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US still planned to take part in talks and hoped to discuss a number of concerns beyond the nuclear issue, including discussions on Iran’s ballistic missiles, support for proxy networks across the region and the “treatment of their own people”.
“The leadership of Iran at the clerical level does not reflect the people of Iran. I know of no other country where there’s a bigger difference between the people who lead the country and the people who live there,” he told reporters.
On Tuesday, Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian said he had instructed the foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the US, in the first clear sign from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate.
The shift toward negotiations marked a major turn for Iran, and signals that the move is supported by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters of state.
The 86-year-old cleric previously dismissed any negotiations.
