“[Western nations] have verified it 100 times,” Pezeshkian said. “Do it 1,000 times again.”

Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Seyed Abbas Araghchi, who wrote on social media this week that the negotiations in Oman are “as much an opportunity as it is a test” for the White House, expressed the same complaint in a Washington Post op-ed published Tuesday.

“Ten years after the [2015 nuclear deal] was concluded — and nearly seven years after the United States unilaterally walked away from it — there is no evidence that Iran has violated this commitment,” the foreign minister wrote. “This has been reaffirmed by U.S. intelligence assessments time and again.”

As evidence, Araghchi pointed to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who last month testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that U.S. intelligence “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

The Iranian government is not only emphasizing that they are not seeking to produce a nuclear weapon but throwing out the idea of U.S. investment in its country as a possible sweetener for a mutually satisfying deal.

“[Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] has no opposition to investment by American investors in Iran,” said Pezeshkian on Wednesday. “American investors — come and invest.”

On this point, too, the foreign minister’s rhetoric is in lock-step, claiming in his op-ed that it is U.S. officials inhibiting economic cooperation, not Tehran.

“Many in Washington portray Iran as a closed country from an economic point of view. The truth is that we are open to welcoming businesses from around the world,” Araghchi wrote. “It is the U.S. administrations and congressional impediments, not Iran, that have kept American enterprises away from the trillion-dollar opportunity that access to our economy represents.”

The negotiations in Oman this weekend will be a crucial test of the White House’s negotiating prowess as both sides enter with drastically different visions for the future of Iran.

The U.S., in cooperation with Israel, is seeking a total shutdown of Iranian nuclear facilities, with the threat of military intervention looming behind its demands.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made this abundantly clear in an address given the day after his meeting with Trump at the White House on Monday. He expressed optimism for a new Iranian nuclear deal being struck through diplomacy but clarified it would need to mirror the disarmament of Libya in 2003.

“We agree that Iran must not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons,” the prime minister said. “This can be achieved through an agreement — but only if it is a Libya-style agreement, one where the facilities are entered, dismantled, and destroyed under American supervision and execution — that’s good.”

WITKOFF TO MEET IRAN FOREIGN MINISTER, USE MEDIATORS TO TALK ABOUT NUCLEAR PROGRAM

“In that case, the option is military,” Netanyahu added. “Everyone understands that. We discussed this at length.” 

The first feud of the negotiations might be the nature and style of the talks themselves.

Iranian officials say that the “indirect” negotiations in Oman will be carried out with mediators communicating American and Iranian positions between envoys without the two sides meeting.

The White House has sent completely opposite signals. Trump announced on Monday that the “very big meeting” will consist of “direct talks.”

“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and if the talks aren’t successful, I actually think it will be a very bad day for Iran,” the president warned the same day from the Oval Office.