By Parisa Hafezi and Olivia Le Poidevin
GENEVA, Feb 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. and Iran made significant progress in talks aimed at resolving a longstanding nuclear dispute and averting new U.S. strikes on Iran, mediator Oman said on Thursday, amid a large-scale U.S. military buildup in the Middle East.
The two sides plan to resume negotiations soon after consultations in their countries’ capitals, with techical-level discussions scheduled to take place next week in Vienna, Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said in a post on X after the day’s talks ended in Switzerland.
“We have finished the day after significant progress in the negotiation between the United States and Iran,” the Omani foreign minister said.
A senior Iranian official had told Reuters earlier that the U.S. and Iran could reach a framework for a deal if Washington separates “nuclear and non-nuclear issues.”
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held indirect talks mediated by Oman, one session in the morning and the second convened in the afternoon.
There was no immediate comment from U.S. and Iranian negotiators on the outcome of the talks.
The discussions over the decades-long dispute over Iran’s nuclear work come as fears grow of a Middle East conflagration, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening action if there is no deal and the U.S. military building up its forces in the region.
(Reporting by Olivia Le Poidevin and Manuel Ausloos in Geneva; Parisa Hafezi in Dubai; Steve Holland, Patricia Zengerle, David Brunnstrom, Katharine Jackson and Joseph Ax in Washington; Francois Murphy in Vienna and Rami Ayyub in Jerusalem; Writing by Olivia Le Poidevin, Michael Georgy, Angus McDowall and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Stephen Coates, Ros Russell, Timothy Heritage, Andrew Heavens and Cynthia Osterman)
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