US official says we are continuing positive discussions with Iran through intermediaries, and there will be no agreement without addressing the nuclear issue, reports Al Jazeera

The established pattern in past negotiation episodes is that constructive talk tones down the premium embedded in the front of the oil curve and in options skew, while the hard linkage to the nuclear file, stated here as a precondition, is what has tended to cap how far that unwind runs, since the nuclear question is the threshold issue on which earlier rounds have repeatedly stalled. The transmission channel is the market's pricing of potential Iranian export normalisation: sanctioned barrels returning, and the freight, insurance, and dark-fleet discount mechanics that govern them, rather than any immediate supply change. Headlines attributed to unnamed officials and carried by regional intermediaries have a track record of being walked back or contradicted, so the signal sits below formal communiqués in reliability. What matters next is confirmation from either capital, any movement on the nuclear track itself, and whether enrichment or sanctions-relief sequencing enters the discussion. As rhetoric rather than action, this is the kind of input that has historically moved crude briefly and mean-reverted absent follow-through.