ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Wednesday cast doubt on Iran's willingness to participate in the next round of negotiations with the US around the nuclear issue.

Tehran and Washington have come face-to-face in indirect talks four times since April to find common ground around Iran’s nuclear program, with the last round taking place in Doha earlier in May, which was described by both sides in a positive tone.

Araghchi said on Wednesday, however, that they are “considering whether or not to participate in the next round of negotiations" with their Western foes, reiterating his country’s position that they will continue to enrich uranium “with or without an agreement.”

Iran has maintained that enriching uranium, which they argue is for peaceful purposes, is “non-negotiable.” Washington’s leading interlocutor in the negotiations, Steve Witkoff, on the other hand, told Breitbart in an interview that “an enrichment program can never exist in the state of Iran ever again. That’s our red line. No enrichment.”

Washington and Western powers have sought robust assurances that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons, though messaging relating to Iran's enrichment of uranium has been inconsistent, fluctuating from proposing a limited degree of enrichment to the current line of complete restriction. Iran has said time and again that they are not seeking nuclear weapons, and if that their adversaries merely seek this guarantee, then a deal “is within reach.”

Going into the fourth round of talks, Iranian state media reported that “doubts have arisen about the goodwill and seriousness of the United States in these negotiations” due to US President Donald Trump’s continuous implementation of his “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran and recent remarks by Witkoff, referring to his Breitbart interview.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that he does not think nuclear talks with the US will “lead to any result” during a speech at a ceremony commemorating former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, painting a stark contrast between the two sides’ narratives of their meetings as compared to US President Donald Trump’s Thursday remarks during his Gulf tour in Qatar, who said that Iran has “sort of” agreed to their terms and conditions.

Trump, during his first presidential term in 2018, walked away from a landmark nuclear deal with Iran, which was introduced three years earlier in 2015 by his predecessor Barack Obama. Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the deal provided sanctions relief to Iran in exchange for the placement of curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.