Iran mulls direct meeting with Trump to sign agreement on principles (Updated)
Sensitivity in Tehran over Trump’s reported plan to call the Persian Gulf the “Gulf of Arabia” when he visits the region next week could make such a meeting more politically difficult, unlikely.
If the US and Iran are able to reach an agreement on principles at their next meeting, it is possible that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian could meet US President Trump to sign it, possibly when Trump travels to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next week, a former Iranian diplomat said.
Neither the US nor Iran have confirmed that their tentative next round of talks will take place on May 11 in Muscat, Oman, and the date as of this writing did not seem to be finalized, and one source was under the impression it was likely to be pushed back.
US negotiator Steve Witkoff told Axios on Monday that was a prospective next US Iran meeting date, but it wasn’t clear if he would be needed in Washington to help prepare for Trump’s trip to the Gulf. Trump is due to depart the United States on May 12 and arrive in Saudi Arabia on May 13.
Former Iranian ambassador Hossein Mousavian proposed that when Trump is in the region next week, that his hosts, either the Saudi Crown Prince or Emir of Qatar, with the help of Oman, could try to arrange for a meeting of the Iranian and US Presidents, “so that the principles agreed in three rounds of nuclear talks…can be signed by the two presidents,” he wrote on Twitter.
Mousavian suggested that the signing could take place on the sidelines of a meeting involving the heads of eight Persian Gulf countries to discuss regional security issues that the Saudi or Qatari leadership could convene.
Iran's Foreign Ministry on Wednesday refuted reports speculating about a possible near term meeting between the Iranian and American presidents.*
Iran foreign ministry spokesman Esmail “Baqaei on Wednesday rejected as ‘fabricated and baseless’ recent media reports that Tehran has proposed direct talks with Washington and that a meeting between the presidents of the two countries is to happen soon,” Iran’s Fars news agency reported.)
Ironically, Trump’s upcoming trip to the region is among the issues taking time away from an effort by the US and Iran to advance a nuclear deal with some urgency.
“There is no crisis” in the talks, Trita Parsi, of the Quincy Institute, told me. “But there has been a significant loss of time…One reason is because of the [Trump Middle East] trip.”
“The Iranians want to move fast,” he said. “But the US has to get everyone in place and figure out their position and maybe get other factors resolved.”
Parsi was under the impression the May 11 meeting date was likely to get pushed back.
A possible US Iran high level meeting could also be scuttled by Iranian political sensitivity over a rumored Trump plan to rename the Persian Gulf the Gulf of Arabia.
Trump said today (May 7) he had not yet decided whether on his trip to the Middle East next week he will announce the US is going to call the Persian Gulf “the Gulf of Arabia,” as the AP reported he planned to do.
Trump said he would consider it, but “I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Many Iranians across the ideological spectrum expressed outrage at the report Trump was considering changing the name of the waterway to the Arabian Gulf.
Iran’s foreign minister --and Witkoff’s chief Iranian interlocutor -- Abbas Araghchi took to Twitter to urge the US administration not to take such a move.
“Let’s hope that the absurd rumors about the PERSIAN Gulf that are going around are no more than a disinformation campaign,…to anger Iranians all over the world and agitate them,” Araghchi wrote.
“I am confident that @realdonaldTrump is aware that the name PERSIAN Gulf is centuries old and recognized by cartographers and international bodies,” Araghchi wrote. “While any short-sighted step in this connection will have no validity or legal or geographical effect, it will only bring the wrath of all Iranians from all walks of life and political persuasion in Iran, the US and across the world.”
To further illustrate his argument, the Iranian minister’s tweet included a map of the Persian Gulf that he credited to the US Library of Congress. (Photo at top).
The rumored ‘Gulf of Arabia’ plan seemed to be generating unusual political alarm in Tehran, one source said, speculating that it could be related to consideration of plans for a possible high level Trump meeting with the Iranian president.
Trump also said today that the US administration had not yet decided if under a prospective new deal with Iran, Iran could retain an enrichment program for civilian energy purposes, with robust verification to ensure Iran did not have a military program.
“We haven’t made that decision yet,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office today, after the swearing in of new US Ambassador to China David Perdue. “We will, but we haven’t made that decision yet.”
Earlier today, Vice President JD Vance said the US envisaged a deal with Iran under which Iran could retain a civilian nuclear energy program, but that verified Iran did not have a military enrichment program.
“We think that there is a deal here that would reintegrate Iran into the global economy, that would be really good for the Iranian people, but would result in the complete cessation of any chance that they can get a nuclear weapon,” Vance said in a conversation with former German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, hosted at a Washington event today by the Munich Security Forum.
“So far, so good,” Vance said of the three rounds of US-Iran talks that have taken place in recent weeks, in Muscat and Rome.
“We've been very happy by how the Iranians have responded to some of the points that we've made,” Vance said. “So far, we're on the right pathway.”
“They can have civil nuclear power,” Vance said. “So our proposition is very simple. We don’t care if people want nuclear power. We're fine with that. But you can't have the kind of enrichment program that allows you to get to a nuclear weapon.”
Trump on Tuesday also announced that the US had reached a cease-fire deal with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, that was mediated by Oman.
*Updated 5/8/2025 with the Iranian foreign ministry’s reported comments.
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