Tehran, 13 March 2025 (dpa/MIA) - Tehran could be open to indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has indicated.

"In world politics, it is common for states that do not want to talk to each other directly to do so indirectly," Araghchi told the state-run daily newspaper Iran in comments published on Thursday.

Araghchi was responding to a question about possible nuclear negotiations with the US.

Indirect negotiations in a neutral country like Oman are conceivable, he said. Oman has mediated between the two hostile countries several times in the past.

"The US government must understand that negotiations are only possible on an equal footing and not under a strategy of maximum pressure on Iran," Araghchi emphasized.

He said Iran would continue to rely on the constructive cooperation and mediation of the other five partner states of the Vienna nuclear deal, which intended to limit Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

The United States unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018 during US President Donald Trump's first term, but China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom are still party to the agreement.

Last week, Trump announced that he had written a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei about possible nuclear negotiations.

Khamenei has since repeatedly ruled out negotiations with the Trump administration. The moderate conservative Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has also rejected the possibility of negotiations, saying: "These demands to do this and not to do that are unacceptable and do not form a basis for negotiations."

Tehran has not complied with the terms of the nuclear deal since the US withdrawal in 2018. However, Iran is facing a severe financial crisis due to the sanctions. Observers say the only way out of the crisis is to resume nuclear negotiations in the hope that the sanctions are lifted.

Photo: EPA