Senior US and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Istanbul on Friday for talks aimed at de-escalating the crisis between their countries, according to three current regional officials and a former one who were familiar with the planning.
The talks, they said, aim to bring together Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy; Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law; and Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, the officials said. Also expected to attend are senior officials from Turkey, Qatar and Egypt.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists. They included an Arab official, a regional official, a senior Iranian official and a former Iranian diplomat.
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White House officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The plans for the negotiations could change.
If the talks happen, they will mark a rare face-to-face encounter between US and Iranian officials at a time when military threats by Mr Trump, and the refusal of Iran’s leaders to accept his demands, have brought the two countries to the precipice of war, spreading fear across the region.
In recent weeks, Mr Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if its embattled leaders, who last month crushed mass protests with lethal force, did not yield to his demands. Those include Iran’s ending its nuclear program, accepting limits on its ballistic missiles and halting its support for proxy militias around the Arab world.
So far, Iran’s leaders have said they would not negotiate while under threat, while vowing a harsh response to any US attack.
Relations between Mr Trump and Iran have been sour since his first term, when he withdrew the United States from a 2015 international agreement limiting Iran’s nuclear program. They have grown substantially worse over the last year.
In June, the United States joined with Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear facilities, and claimed to have significantly set back the country’s ability to enrich uranium.
Last month, as anti-government protests raged across Iran, Mr Trump threatened to intervene militarily if Iran’s security forces used violence against demonstrators. They did, killing many thousands of people, according to human rights groups, before claiming to have stamped out the unrest.
When he issued his demands last month Mr Trump vowed to use force if Iran refused to accept them. He has raised the possibility of regime change in Iran, and said that time was running out, without providing a clear deadline.
He announced that a US “armada” was moving toward the country “with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.” Flight tracking data and satellite imagery confirmed that the United States had indeed expanded its military presence in the region.
Mr Trump’s demands aimed to address long-standing concerns about the threat that Iran and its proxies posed to United States military bases and close US partners, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. But while many Middle Eastern countries also opposed Iran’s regional activities, few of its neighbours supported Mr Trump’s vow to attack it, concerned that such a move could set off a broader war.
“The unprecedented, concerted regional response is not an endorsement of Iran so much as a collective flinch at the prospect of an American intervention unleashing chaos that would not stop at national lines,” said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group.
In recent weeks, diplomats from Turkey, Egypt, Oman and Iraq have been talking with the two sides, ferrying messages between them in hopes of avoiding an escalation. Qatar’s prime minister was recently in Iran as part of the diplomatic effort, said two Iranian officials.
Mr Araghchi and Mr Witkoff are communicating directly through text messages, according to the Iranian officials and an American one.
To calm the situation, the two officials said, Iran is willing to shut down or suspend its nuclear program, a major concession. But it would prefer a proposal that the United States made last year, to create a regional consortium to produce nuclear power.
The two officials also said the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, Ali Larijani, had met in recent days with Russian President Vladimir Putin with a message from Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iran could agree to ship its enriched uranium to Russia, as it did under the 2015 pact.
When asked about such a possibility, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Monday that “the topic has long been on the agenda,” adding that “Russia continues its efforts and contacts with all interested parties.”
Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is intended to produce energy, not bombs, and Mr Araghchi has said that Iran remains open to negotiations.
“We have never lost the opportunity to get the rights of Iranian people through diplomacy,” he told foreign ministry staff in a video shared Monday on social media.
Reflecting the broader regional push, one of the regional officials who confirmed the planned meeting in Istanbul suggested that the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Pakistan could also participate.
Officials from those countries have not confirmed whether they have been invited or will attend.
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