Senior US and Iranian diplomats reportedly met secretly in Oman earlier this year as Washington tried to seek Tehran’s help in stopping attacks by Yemen’s Houthis in the Red Sea,
The top Middle East official at the White House, Brett McGurk, and the State Department’s Iran envoy, Abram Paley, headed the US delegation that met with an Iranian team, which Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani led, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
According to the newspaper, which cited unnamed US and Iranian officials, the talks were indirect, with Omani officials relaying messages between the two camps.
During the indirect talks, American officials also sounded the alarm over Iran’s expanding nuclear program.
This first round of talks was held in January, with a second scheduled for February. But those talks never materialized as McGurk is busy trying to broker a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip in return for the release of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas.
