Iran's Foreign Minister Spokesman says "During Russian [Foreign Minister] Lavrov's visit to Tehran, there was no discussion about nuclear negotiations with the United States, and we are not negotiating with the United States in this regard"

Iran's Foreign Minister Spokesman says "During Russian [Foreign Minister] Lavrov's visit to Tehran, there was no discussion about nuclear negotiations with the United States, and we are not negotiating with the United States in this regard"

Denials of this kind are standard furniture in the long-running Iran-US negotiation cycle: both sides have historically used categorical public rejections as bargaining positioning, and past episodes have repeatedly shown formal 'no talks' statements coexisting with indirect or back-channel contact, often via Omani, Qatari or European intermediaries. The phrasing matters more than the sentiment; 'not negotiating in this regard' leaves scope for other channels and other formats, a construction that has appeared before shortly prior to quiet rounds resuming. The transmission to crude runs through the sanctions supply premium: any durable closing of the diplomatic track raises the tail risk of tighter enforcement or escalation, while any hint of a path back re-opens the question of incremental Iranian barrels returning to an officially sanctioned market. The Lavrov framing adds the familiar complication that Moscow has at times positioned itself as intermediary and at other times as spoiler, and its involvement has historically tended to slow rather than accelerate any US track. What is worth watching next is whether the denial is echoed in Washington, whether indirect formats surface elsewhere, and whether enforcement rhetoric on Iranian flows hardens in the interim. As a headline it is status-confirming rather than status-changing; the repricing events in this cycle have come from verifiable shifts in enforcement or from confirmed rounds of talks, not from rhetorical denials.