Iran, US to hold expert-level talks on Saturday, not Wednesday, Tehran says

CAIRO (Reuters) - Expert-level Iran-U.S. talks that were supposed to take place on Wednesday will be shifted to Saturday, Tehran's foreign ministry spokesperson said, with a third round of high-level nuclear talks due on the same day in Oman.

Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to begin drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said after the talks in Rome that a U.S. official described as yielding "very good progress".

"Based on Oman's suggestion and the agreement of U.S. and Iranian delegations, the technical consultation meeting, in the framework of indirect talks between the two sides, that was supposed to take place on Wednesday... has been moved to Saturday," foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.

Top U.S. and Iranian negotiators will meet again in Oman on Saturday to "review the experts' work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement", Araqchi had said.

Western powers suspect Iran is pursuing the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon, which Tehran denies.

Iran, which insists its uranium enrichment programme is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic activity in return for a lifting of international sanctions against it.

(Reporting by Menna Alaa El Din and Elwely Elwelly; editing by William Maclean and Mark Heinrich)

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