Mediator in U.S.-Iran Talks Says ‘Peace Deal Is Within Our Reach’

CBS News/Face the Nation

“Substantial progress” has been made in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi told CBS News on Friday.

Albusaidi has mediated talks between the two countries in recent weeks as President Donald Trump has escalated tensions by ordering a massive military buildup near Iran. The U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites last summer, and Trump declared the country’s nuclear facilities to be “totally obliterated.”

But now the Trump administration is demanding that Iran re-obliterate its main nuclear sites and hand over its enriched uranium. Iran has balked at the idea, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

On Friday, however, Albusaidi told CBS News that a “peace deal is within our reach.”

In an interview with Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation, Albusaidi said a “peace deal is within our reach” and that Iran has agreed that it will “never, ever have … nuclear material that will create a bomb.”

“There would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling, and full verification,” Albusaidi stated, adding that weapons inspections would be conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, with possibly an American contingent as well.

According to a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is not clear whether Iran is currently enriching uranium. The country has long insisted that its enrichment programs are for civilian use and that it is not seeking to achieve weapons-grade uranium, which is above 90% enrichment.

On Friday, Trump said Iran must stop enrichment entirely.

“Not 20%, 30%, they always want 20%, 30%, they want it for civilian, you know, for civil. I think it’s uncivil,” he told reporters.

Albusaidi said that negotiators “need a little bit more time” to finalize details.

Iran had previously agreed to scale back enrichment activities while allowing more thorough nuclear inspections as part of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which was signed by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (U.S., U.K., China, Russia, and France) and the European Union. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018.

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