On Friday, the US news website Axios reported that talks took place “this week” between Tehran and Washington on “how to avoid an escalation of attacks” in the Middle East. Iran’s mission to the United Nations confirmed “the news published about indirect negotiations between Iran and the United States in Oman,” the official IRNA news agency reported, but gave no details on the timing or substance of the meetings. “They were not the first and will not be the last,” the agency said. According to Axios, which said it did not know who represented Tehran, the US side was led by Brett McGurk, the White House’s Middle East adviser, and Rob Malley, the Iran envoy. The talks were brokered by Omani officials and came a little over a month after Iran launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13. Most of the 350 drones and missiles were intercepted with the help of the United States and several other allied countries. That attack, which raised fears of a wider regional war, came after an Israeli airstrike on Iranian positions in Syria killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic republic, including two generals. Separately, Washington has accused Tehran of backing Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have carried out attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, which they say are in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The US has not had diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979 and its interests in Tehran are represented by the Swiss embassy. In recent years, the two countries have held indirect talks on prisoner exchanges, the release of Iranian funds frozen abroad and steps to limit Iran’s nuclear programme. Read Also: EU alarga sanções contra Irão para incluir exportação de mísseis (Portuguese version)