Dubai: A second US aircraft carrier is operating in Mideast waters ahead of the next round of talks between Iran and the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme, satellite photos analysed on Tuesday by The Associated Press showed.
The operation of the USS Carl Vinson and its strike group in the Arabian Sea comes as suspected US airstrikes pounded parts of Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels overnight into Tuesday.
American officials repeatedly have linked the US’ month-long campaign against the Houthis under President Donald Trump as a means to pressure Iran in the negotiations.
Questions remain over where the weekend talks between the countries will be held after officials initially identified Rome as hosting the negotiations, only for Iran to insist early Tuesday they would return to Oman. American officials so far haven’t said where the talks will be held.
The stakes of the negotiations couldn’t be higher for the two nations closing in on half a century of enmity. Trump repeatedly has threatened to unleash airstrikes targeting Iran’s nuclear programme if a deal isn’t reached.
Iranian officials increasingly warn that they could pursue a nuclear weapon with their stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels.
But even Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reportedly described the first round of talks as going “well”, even while still couching his remarks Tuesday.
US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, who represented America in last weekend’s talks in Oman, separately signalled that the Trump administration may be looking at terms of the 2015 nuclear deal that the president unilaterally withdrew from in 2018 as a basis for these negotiations. He described the talks last weekend as “positive, constructive, compelling”.
“This is going to be much about verification on the enrichment program, and then ultimately verification on weaponisation,” Witkoff told Fox News on Monday night.
“That includes missiles, the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there. And it includes the trigger for a bomb.”
He added: “We’re here to see if we can solve this situation diplomatically and with dialogue.”
Satellite photos taken Monday by the European Union’s Copernicus programme showed the Vinson, which is based out of San Diego, California, operating northeast of Socotra, an island off Yemen that sits near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
The Vinson is accompanied by the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton and two Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers, the USS Sterett and the USS William P. Lawrence.
The US ordered the Vinson to the Mideast to back up the USS Harry S. Truman, which has been launching airstrikes against the Houthis since the American campaign started March 15. Footage released by the Navy showed the Vinson preparing ordinance and launching F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets off its deck in recent days.
The US Navy’s Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, which oversees the Mideast, declined to discuss details of the Vinson’s operations. However, hours after the AP’s report, the US military’s Central Command posted videos from the two carriers on the social platform X saying there had been “24/7 strikes” on the Houthis by the two carriers.
The Vinson’s arrival came as Khamenei, while speaking to high-ranking government officials in Tehran on Tuesday, endorsed the progress of the talks.
“We are neither radically optimistic about the talks nor radically pessimistic about the talks,” the 85-year-old Khamenei said, according to Iranian state television.
However, he said the talks had been “implemented well in the first steps” and that Iran remained “pessimistic” about America.
He also urged officials “not to tie the country’s affairs” to the talks, which are scheduled to have a second round on Saturday.
The “red lines are quite clear for us and the other side,” he added.
Meanwhile, Witkoff offered for the first time a specific enrichment level he’d like to see for Iran’s nuclear programme. Today, Tehran enriches uranium to up to 60 per cent — a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent.
“They do not need to enrich past 3.67 per cent,” Witkoff told Fox News. “In some circumstances, they’re at 60 per cent, in other circumstances, 20 per cent. That cannot be.
“And you do not need to run, as they claim, a civil nuclear program where you’re enriching past 3.67 per cent. So this is going to be much about verification on the enrichment programme, and then ultimately verification on weaponisation.”
The 2015 nuclear deal Iran agreed to with world powers under President Barack Obama saw Tehran agree to drastically reduce its stockpile of uranium and only enrich up to 3.67 per cent — enough for its nuclear power plant at Bushehr.
Iran in exchange received access to frozen funds around the world, and sanctions were lifted on its crucial oil industry and other sectors.
Iran’s Javan newspaper, which is believed to be close to its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, suggested in an editorial Tuesday that Tehran would be open to reducing its enrichment.
“Something that we have done before, why should we not carry it again and reach a deal?” the editorial asked. “This is not called a withdrawal by Islamic Republic from its ideals anywhere in the world.”
When Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, however, he pointed at Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile as one reason to leave the deal. Witkoff said any deal with Iran would have to include “missiles, the type of missiles that they have stockpiled there and it includes the trigger for a bomb”.
Iran relies on its ballistic missiles as a hedge against regional nations armed with advanced fighter jets and other American weaponry. Getting it to abandon its missile programme likely will be difficult in negotiations.
