IRAN and the United States began a fifth round of negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme today in Rome, with enrichment emerging as the key issue.

US President Donald Trump insists that Iran cannot continue to enrich uranium at all in any deal that could see sanctions lifted on Tehran’s struggling economy.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi today insisted in an online post that no enrichment would mean “we do not have a deal.”

“Figuring out the path to a deal is not rocket science,” Mr Araghchi wrote on the social platform X. “Time to decide.”

The US is again represented in the talks by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Michael Anton, the State Department’s policy planning director. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi is mediating the negotiations.

The talks seek to limit Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions the US has imposed on the Islamic Republic, closing in on half a century of enmity.

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to bomb Iran if a deal isn’t reached.

Enrichment remains the key point of contention. Mr Witkoff at one point suggested Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67 per cent, then later began saying all Iranian enrichment must stop. That position on the US side has hardened over time.

One idea floated so far that might allow Iran to stop enrichment in the Islamic Republic but maintain a supply of uranium could be a consortium in the Middle East backed by regional countries and the US.

There also are multiple countries and the International Atomic Energy Agency offering low-enriched uranium that can be used for peaceful purposes.

But Iran’s Foreign Ministry has maintained enrichment must continue within the country’s borders and a similar fuel-swap proposal failed to gain traction in negotiations in 2010.

Meanwhile, Israel has threatened to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities on its own if it feels threatened.

Mr Araghchi issued a warning on Thursday that Iran would take “special measures” to defend its nuclear facilities if Israel continues to threaten it, while also warning the US it would view it as being complicit in any Israeli attack.

Iranian authorities allowed a group of students to form a human chain at its underground enrichment site at Fordo on Thursday, an area with incredibly tight security built into a mountain to defend against possible air attacks.