Iran-U.S. Oman talks begin with agenda gap (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Iran's foreign minister says his nation is ready to defend itself against excessive demand or adventurism by the United States as talks between the two countries get underway in Oman. These are the first talks in eight months, with Washington exploring the possibility of a diplomatic solution to curb Tehran's nuclear program. The discussions in Oman are being led by the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Arachi, and the U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff. It's taken days of difficult and delicate diplomacy to get them to happen at all. It comes after a U.S. military build-up in the Middle East in response to Iran's violent repression of nationwide anti-government protests last month, which human rights groups say killed thousands of people. Well, let's go live to Beirut and speak to our Middle East correspondent Hugo Bashega. And Hugo, before these talks even begin, the two sides are disagreeing over what they're negotiating about.

[00:01:05] Speaker 2: Exactly. And I think he really shows the huge gap between the positions of the Iranians and the Americans. The Americans were saying that, look, these talks need to focus not only on the issue over Iran's nuclear program, but also on Iran's ballistic missiles and Iran's support for proxies in the region, such as Hamas, militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and obviously Hezbollah here in Lebanon. But the Iranians said that the talks would only focus on the nuclear program. So we still don't know whether these differences have been resolved. Iranian officials have been saying that they are willing to make concessions, that they are flexible when it comes to discussions about the country's nuclear program. But they say that they are not going to discuss any kind of limits to its ballistic missiles. They say that these demands by the Americans are unacceptable and a breach of the country's sovereignty. So I think the expectation today is very, very low. I think the hope here is that we could see if these negotiations, the talks today, are successful, a framework for possible negotiations that would obviously lead to de-escalation, to a de-escalation of the crisis here amid this massive U.S. military build-up in the region.

[00:02:28] Speaker 1: Hugo, I want to ask you about the view there in Beirut. Of course, Iran has interests in Lebanon. It supports Hezbollah there. How are people in the region feeling about these tensions?

[00:02:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the talks today are being seen by many as a last opportunity to prevent a military attack by the U.S. on Iran. For the Iranians, obviously, the talks are crucial to keep this diplomatic possibility open to avert a military strike on the country. And I think for President Trump, this could offer an off-ramp from his military threats. He has obviously threatened to strike Iran if no deal is reached, if the country doesn't accept his demands. There has been this huge military build-up in the Middle East in response to the violent crackdown of those anti-government demonstrations that happened across Iran last month. And across the region, there has been a lot of concern that any kind of military attack on Iran could lead to chaos inside the country, but also to a wider regional conflict, because Iran has said that it would respond to any kind of American attack by targeting military assets in the region, American military assets in the region. So Gulf countries in particular are very concerned. The Iranians have said that Israel could also be targeted. And there is the concern that Iranian proxies in the region, including Hezbollah here in Lebanon, could also be involved in this Iranian, possible Iranian response to an American attack. So that's one of the reasons why there has been so much concern across this region.

[00:04:19] Speaker 1: Hugo, thank you. That's our Middle East correspondent, Hugo Bashega, in Beirut there.