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Iran examines regional proposals to ease tensions with the US as it expects a framework for talks in the coming days.

Iran has said that it expects progress on a framework to restart nuclear talks with the United States as unverified reports suggest the country’s president has ordered the revival of the negotiations.

Tehran said on Monday that it is examining several diplomatic processes pitched by countries in the region to ease tensions with Washington, adding that it expects a framework for talks in the coming days.

The announcement came as Tehran and Washington appear to be pulling back from the threat of military action.

US President Donald Trump sent warships to the Middle East after Iran violently put down mass protests in January, but he then called for Tehran to make a deal to resume talks on its nuclear programme, which were abandoned in June when Iran was attacked by the US and Israel.

On Sunday, Trump said the US is talking with Iran. Tehran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has now confirmed indirect negotiations are ongoing.

“Countries of the region are acting as mediators in the exchange of messages,” he said on Monday without giving details on the content of the negotiations.

“Several points have been addressed, and we are examining and finalising the details of each stage in the diplomatic process, which we hope to conclude in the coming days.”

The state news agency IRNA reported that Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had telephone calls with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkiye to discuss the latest developments.

Later, the Fars news agency quoted an unnamed source as saying Pezeshkian had ordered the resumption of nuclear talks.

“Iran and the United States will hold talks on the nuclear file,” Fars reported without specifying a date. The report was also carried by the government newspaper Iran and the reformist daily Shargh.

Araghchi is due to meet US envoy Steve Witkoff for negotiations against this backdrop, Iranian news agency Tasnim also reported on Monday. Neither Tehran nor Washington has verified a meeting has been arranged.

The reports out of Tehran came as the region has been braced for a potential US attack as an aircraft carrier and fighter jets are sitting in the Indian Ocean close enough to assist a strike.

Trump threatened Iran in the wake of mass protests there in which thousands of people were killed in January. The demonstrations, which were triggered by economic distress and the collapse of the country’s currency, morphed into a direct challenge to the government.

However, Trump’s approach has since transformed into a demand for a nuclear deal as the US and European Union are concerned that Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its programme is strictly civilian.

While Iran suggested on Monday that it is moving closer to agreeing to reopen talks, it is understood that the US has set some conditions.

Iranian sources told the Reuters news agency that for talks to resume, Trump has demanded that Iran agree to end enrichment of uranium, curtail its missile programme and halt support to its network of allied armed groups in the region.

In the past, Iran has shown flexibility in discussing the nuclear file, but missiles and regional allies have long been treated as nonnegotiable.

It is not clear whether Iran would change its position now that the country urgently needs sanctions relief to improve the economy and stave off future unrest.

In June, American and Iranian officials had kicked off negotiations in Oman, but the process stalled after Israel attacked Iran and then the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities.

On Sunday, Trump said Iran was “seriously talking” with the US but insisted, “We have very big, powerful ships heading in that direction.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has also maintained a defiant tone, warning on Sunday that any attack would result in a “regional war”.

As officials in the region geared up their diplomacy to avoid another confrontation, the EU last week designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a “terrorist organisation”.

On Monday, Iran said it had summoned all EU envoys in recent days over the move, adding that it was considering “countermeasures”.

Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez has signed into law a reform bill that will pave the way for increased privatisation in the South American country’s nationalised oil sector, fulfilling a key demand from her United States counterpart, Donald Trump.

On Thursday, Rodriguez held a signing ceremony with a group of state oil workers. She hailed the reform as a positive step for Venezuela’s economy.

“We’re talking about the future. We are talking about the country that we are going to give to our children,” Rodriguez said.

The ceremony came within hours of the National Assembly – dominated by members of Rodriguez’s United Socialist Party – passing the reform.

“Only good things will come after the suffering,” said Jorge Rodriguez, the assembly’s head and brother of the interim president.

Since the US military’s abduction of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on January 3, the Trump administration has sought to pressure President Rodriguez to open the country’s oil sector to outside investment.

Trump has even warned that Rodriguez could “pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro”, should she fail to comply with his demands.

Thursday’s legislation will give private firms control over the sale and production of Venezuelan oil.

It would also require legal disputes to be resolved outside of Venezuelan courts, a change long sought by foreign companies, who argue that the judicial system in the country is dominated by the ruling socialist party.

The bill would also cap royalties collected by the government at 30 percent.

While Rodriguez signed the reform law, the Trump administration simultaneously announced it would loosen some sanctions restricting the sale of Venezuelan oil.

The Department of the Treasury said it would allow limited transactions by the country’s government and the state oil company PDVSA that were “necessary to the lifting, exportation, reexportation, sale, resale, supply, storage, marketing, purchase, delivery, or transportation of Venezuelan-origin oil, including the refining of such oil, by an established US entity”.

Previously, all of Venezuela’s oil sector was subject to sweeping US sanctions imposed in 2019, under Trump’s first term as president.

Thursday’s suite of changes is designed to make Venezuela’s oil market more appealing to outside petroleum firms, many of whom remain wary of investing in the country.

Under Maduro, Venezuela experienced waves of political repression and economic instability, and much of his government remains intact, though Maduro himself is currently awaiting trial in a New York prison.

His abduction resulted in dozens of deaths, and critics have accused the US of violating Venezuelan sovereignty.

Venezuela nationalised its oil sector in the 1970s, and in 2007, Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, pushed the government to increase its control and expropriate foreign-held assets.

Following Maduro’s abduction, Trump administration officials have said that the US will decide to whom and under what conditions Venezuelan oil is sold, with proceeds deposited into a US-controlled bank account.

Concerns about the legality of such measures or the sovereignty of Venezuela have been waved aside by Trump and his allies, who previously asserted that Venezuelan oil should “belong” to the US.