Omani foreign minister’s visit raises speculation that country may get involved as intermediary in Vienna DUBAI: Negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal have entered a “critical” stage during which some key issues still need to be resolved, Tehran’s top diplomat said on Wednesday. The 2015 accord had offered Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program, but the US unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump. Western powers that have been locked in nuclear talks with Iran have said in the past week that a deal was within reach while stressing the ball was in the Islamic republic’s court. Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that the negotiations had “reached a critical and important stage.” “We hope that some sensitive and important issues remaining in the negotiations will be resolved in the coming days with realism from the Western side,” he said at a joint press conference with his Oman counterpart Sayyid Badr Al-Busaidi. Oman has often acted as a go-between to help facilitate backdoor diplomacy between the US and Iran, sometimes involving the release of prisoners. The diplomatic visit raised speculation that Oman may get involved as an intermediary in the ongoing nuclear talks, or deliver a US message to Iran. Amir-Abdollahian said he was “optimistic” about a deal, while insisting Iran would not give up its “red lines” in the negotiations. He did not elaborate. The Vienna talks, which involve Iran as well as Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia directly, and the United States indirectly, resumed in November. In recent days, progress in the negotiations has been reported by France, Germany, the US and even Iran. Signs of an agreement coming together emerged over the past week, with France warning that Iran has just days left to accept a deal. “It is not a question of weeks, it is a question of days,” said its Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. “We need political decisions from the Iranians. They have a very clear choice,” he told the French Senate on Feb. 16. Two days later, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the process had reached “the moment of truth.” He said there “was the chance to reach an agreement that will allow sanctions to be lifted” but also warned that the talks could still collapse. Most recently, Iran’s sworn enemy Israel said on Sunday that a deal may be agreed soon while warning that it would be “weaker” than the original 2015 agreement. “The emerging deal, as it seems, is highly likely to create a more violent, more volatile Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said this week, repeating his threat that Israel is not bound by the deal and is prepared to attack Iran if needed. The 2015 agreement, spear-headed by former President Barack Obama, aimed to prevent Iran from being able to build a nuclear bomb. It offered Iran relief from harsh economic sanctions in exchange for curbs of 10 to 15 years on its nuclear activities. Iran says its nuclear activities are peaceful. Critics, led by then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, complained the restrictions were temporary, not airtight and gave Iran a pathway to developing atomic weapons capability. They also argued that the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, did not address Iran’s non-nuclear activity, including its support for regional proxies and its development of long-range missiles capable of delivering a bomb. At Netanyahu’s urging, President Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2018, promising a campaign of “maximum pressure” on the Iranians. Despite tougher sanctions, that strategy appears to have backfired. The Iranian government, now under a more hard-line leader who was elected last year, remains firmly in power, and with the deal unraveling, Iran has raced ahead with uranium enrichment and other research far beyond the boundaries of the original agreement. Israeli leaders fear the brief remaining lifespan of the JCPOA will do little to halt Iran in the long run, especially after the technological gains Iran has made in recent years. It remains unclear whether Iran will even have to give up its stockpile of enriched uranium. But they also fear that with sanctions eased and billions of dollars in now-frozen assets to be released, Iran would spend more on arming and funding its proxies across the region. These include Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups in the Gaza Strip. “Iran is going to be more able and confident to do things it has already been doing, with more resources and confidence, and perhaps immunity because it signed a very important agreement,” said Yoel Guzansky, an expert on Iran at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank.