US holds indirect talks with Iran to prevent escalation of regional attacks: Report

The United States and Iran held indirect talks this week in Oman in an attempt to prevent the escalation of regional attacks, as per a report.

The discussion took place between two senior US officials and their Iranian counterparts.

President Joe Biden had sent his Middle East adviser Brett McGurk and acting US envoy to Iran Abram Paley for the first round of discussions between the two countries in January, as per Axios reports.

The talks involved discussions around Iran's unprecedented assault against Israel on April 13.

According to the reports, McGurk and Paley on Tuesday (May 14) met with the Omani mediators for the indirect talks. However, it is not yet clear as to who represented the Iranian side.

The US expressed concerns over Iran's nuclear program and the potential consequences of acts carried out by Iran and its proxies in the region.

Earlier this week, State Department's deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel had said that the Biden administration will communicate with Iran in its own ways whenever necessary.

"The Biden administration continues to assess that Iran is not currently undertaking the key activities that would be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device," he said.

Iran issues nuclear bomb threat to Israel amid escalating tensions

Meanwhile, a senior Iranian official said that Tehran would change its nuclear doctrine if Israel continues to threaten its existence amid the ongoing turmoil in West Asia stemming from the war in Gaza.

The assertion has triggered newfound fears of nuclear warfare in the region.

Iran's public position is that it has no plans to obtain nuclear weapons. But intelligence agencies across the world have long concluded that Tehran intends to obtain a nuclear bomb.

Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a sharp threat to Israel earlier this week by indicating that Tehran might change its nuclear doctrine sooner than expected.

Kharrazi said to Iran's Student News Network, "We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran's existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine."

"Recently, the military officials also announced that if Israel wants to attack nuclear facilities, it is possible and imaginable to revise Iran’s nuclear doctrine and policies and divert from the previous declaration considerations," he added.

Earlier in 2022, Kharrazi had claimed that Iran was technically capable of making a nuclear bomb but had not yet decided whether to build one.

Supreme Leader Khamenei banned the development of nuclear weapons in a fatwa in the early 2000s.

In his latest comment on the matter, Kharrazi said, "In the case of an attack on our nuclear facilities by the Zionist regime, our deterrence will change."

(With inputs from agencies)