Iran-US talks turn to interim deal amid nuclear rifts

US and Iranian negotiators have toned-down objectives for a peace deal and are seeking a temporary memorandum to prevent a return to conflict, instead, as per two Iranian sources.

This shift comes after last weekend's talks ⁠in Islamabad, where deep differences over Iran’s nuclear programme including enriched uranium stockpiles talks and how long Tehran should halt nuclear ⁠work, kept stalling development, despite US officials and Pakistani mediators talking up prospects.

The two sides started narrowing gaps, including over how to manage the Strait of Hormuz, according to a senior Iranian official. A vital route for about 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas needs that has been closed to most ships for weeks.

Iran, which has faced crippling US sanctions for years, wants a memorandum to include Washington unfreezing some Iranian funds, in return for allowing more ships through the strait, said the senior official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity ​of the matter.

A source briefed by Tehran said ⁠on Wednesday that Iran could let ships sail freely through the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz without risk of attack under proposals it has offered in talks with the US, providing a durable deal is clinched.

But more than halfway through a two-week truce, deeper splits remain. The senior official said these included agreeing on the fate of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched ⁠uranium (HEU), which the US ‌wants removed, and the duration of any halt to Iranian nuclear work, notably uranium enrichment.

Iran has long demanded Washington acknowledge its right to enrich uranium, which Tehran says it only seeks for peaceful purposes but which ‌Western powers and Israel say is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

A Western diplomat said the nuclear issue "remains a core obstacle".

If a memorandum to halt the conflict is reached, ⁠the two sides are expected to have 60 days to negotiate a final deal, which would require involvement of experts and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Iranian sources said.

A previous international deal curtailing ‌Iran's nuclear work in return for sanctions relief was signed in 2015 but it took almost two years to ‌negotiate. President Donald Trump scrapped that pact in 2018.

The Iranian sources said the United States is demanding a halt to ‌Iran's nuclear enrichment work for 20 years, while Iran wants to limit it to three to five years. Tehran also ‌wants a timetable for lifting sanctions of UN, US and EU, they said.

Iran has also in the past refused a US demand to ship out its entire stockpile of uranium which has been enriched to 60 per cent, a level that is far higher than levels needed for civilian uses.

However, Iranian sources said ⁠there were signs a compromise could ⁠emerge. One source said that, while Iran was not ready to send all its highly enriched uranium (HEU) abroad, part of it could be sent to a third country.

He said some HEU was needed for medical purposes and for a research reactor in Tehran which runs on relatively small amounts of uranium enriched to around 20 per cent.

The IAEA estimates Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent when Israel and the United States launched their first attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. Exactly how much of that has survived is unclear.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in March that what remained of that stock was “mainly” stored in a tunnel complex in Isfahan, and ​that his agency believed slightly more than 200 kg of it was there. It also believes some is at the ​sprawling nuclear complex at Natanz, where Iran had two enrichment ​plants.

A second Western diplomat said: "The 440 kg HEU remains cause for concern because it allows Iran to have what we call sufficient quantities to build a number of nuclear ​bombs quite quickly, because the final enrichment phase is relatively quick.”

(With Reuters inputs)