TEHRAN, Iran – Iran is “in no hurry” to restart talks with the United States over its nuclear program, Tehran’s foreign minister told Al Jazeera.
In an interview from his Tehran office aired on Sunday, Foreign Minister Abbas Alaghushi told Al Jazeera Arabic that Iran remains willing to engage in indirect negotiations with the United States if the United States chooses to dialogue “on an equal footing based on mutual interests.”
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The official also claimed that an important “common understanding” about Israel is developing across the region.
Iran’s top diplomat said the conditions set by the United States for resuming negotiations, which reportedly included an emphasis on direct negotiations, zero uranium enrichment, and limits on Iran’s missile stockpile and aid to regional allies, were “illogical and unfair.”
That, he suggested, would make negotiations impossible to sustain.
“Apparently they’re in no hurry,” he said. “We’re in no hurry either.”
Araghchi’s assertion comes despite pressure from the reimposition of UN sanctions and other challenges facing Iran’s establishment.
Rather, the foreign minister said he believed regional power relations were turning against Israel, the United States’ closest ally in the Middle East.
“I sometimes tell friends that Mr. Netanyahu is a war criminal who committed all kinds of atrocities, but he took positive actions in terms of proving to the entire region that Israel is the main enemy, not Iran or any other country,” he said, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
The comments came two days after Oman’s top diplomat publicly joined the chorus of disapproval of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his hardline government for the first time.
Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi told the audience at the IISS Manama Dialogue 2025 Regional Forum: “We have known for some time that Israel, not Iran, is the main source of security instability in the region.”
He said that for many years the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) had “at best waited and tolerated Iran’s isolation,” and that he believed that attitude “needs to change.”
In the past 48 hours, the heinous lie that Israel and the United States’ illegal bombing of Iran was motivated by an imminent nuclear threat has been thoroughly debunked.
– The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency clarified that Iran “was not and was not”… pic.twitter.com/C2uBzBLOHD
— Sayed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) November 2, 2025
Oman has long acted as an intermediary between Iran and the United States on nuclear, financial, prisoner exchanges and other regional issues.
Iran and the United States were scheduled to hold a sixth round of talks in mid-June, the year Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. This began a 12-day war that killed more than 1,000 people and caused billions of dollars in infrastructure damage in Iran.
After media reported last week that US President Donald Trump’s administration had sent a new message to Tehran via Oman, Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani confirmed that the message had been received.
However, he did not elaborate on its content or Iran’s potential response. The White House has not officially acknowledged the sending of official documents.
Araghchi said in an interview that “almost all” of Iran’s roughly 400 kg (880 pounds) of 60% enriched uranium is “buried under the rubble” of nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel.
“We’re not going to take them out from under the rubble until the situation is right. We don’t have any information about how much of the 400 kilometers is intact and how much has been destroyed, and we won’t get that information until we dig it out,” he said.
Iran’s foreign minister noted that China and Russia have officially announced that they will not recognize the UN sanctions recently reimposed on Iran by European countries in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
France, the UK and Germany have expressed their desire to resume talks with Iran. However, no substantial progress was made.
Meanwhile, Iran has imposed sanctions and restrictions related to both its suspected drone exports to Russia and its nuclear program.
In September, Europe’s three largest countries announced the suspension of bilateral air services agreements with Iran, affecting Iranian airlines such as Iran Air.
But some flights appear to be slowly returning, with Iranian state television showing footage of an Austrian Airlines flight landing at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on Sunday night.
Germany’s Lufthansa also plans to resume flights to Tehran, but the exact date has not been announced.
