ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq -  US and Iranian officials will be under the same roof at the Sulaimani Forum in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani on Wednesday, less than a week after the two countries resumed nuclear talks in Oman.

The Kurdish cultural capital city will embrace the ninth Sulaimani Forum to Address Pressing Challenges in Iraq and the Middle East on Wednesday, hosted by the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS).

The two-day event will bring together over 700 local and international leaders and decision-makers.

Among them will be Victoria Taylor, US Department of State’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iraq and Iran, according to a post published by AUIS.

The New Region understands that Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh will also be in presence.

Taylor and Khatibzadeh will both have separate panels at the forum.

It is yet unclear whether or not the two diplomats will have any direct contact in Sulaimani, but they will be under the same roof at the same time.

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi and the US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff were both in Muscat last Saturday, starting the first round of bilateral talks on Tehran’s burgeoning nuclear program since the US pulled out from the landmark 2015 nuclear deal.

The two sides will meet again on Saturday in Rome, Italy, again under the auspices of the Sultanate of Oman. 

Iran's Western adversaries, Israel, and some regional Persian Gulf states have viewed Tehran's nuclear proliferation efforts and its missile capabilities as A major threat to regional and global peace, a concern that Tehran dismisses.

The US seeks robust assurances that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Tehran insists that such an ambition has never been on its agenda and is open to verification processes.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday voiced satisfaction with recent talks with the United States.

The talks were "well carried out in the first steps. Of course, we are very pessimistic about the other side, but we are optimistic about our own capabilities," state TV quoted Khamenei as saying.