Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world
Senior Iranian officials arrived in Oman for crunch talks with the US over the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme as part of a diplomatic push to avert a new war between the arch-enemies.
The negotiations, scheduled to begin on Friday, come as US President Donald Trump has been weighing military options against Iran. He has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group, fighter jets and air defences to the region after the Islamic regime brutally cracked down on nationwide protests.
The talks are the first since the US briefly joined Israel’s 12-day war against the republic in June last year to bomb Iran’s main nuclear facilities.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, were expected to hold indirect negotiations with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
Iran’s foreign ministry showed images of Araghchi and other Iranian officials heading to the talks’ venue in Muscat on Friday.
Analysts say the diplomatic effort faces huge challenges if it is to secure a deal between two adversaries with immense distrust for each other and diverging views on what should be up for discussion.
The Trump administration has been insisting that Tehran agree to permanently halt its uranium enrichment programme, accept curbs on its ballistic missile arsenal and end support for regional militant groups such as Hizbollah in Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen.
But Iran has insisted that the talks focus solely on the nuclear issue, while saying that it would not accept an end to its enrichment programme. It argues it has a right to enrich uranium as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.
It has also said its missile programme is not up for negotiation.
The challenges were apparent this week, when Iran sought to move the talks to Oman from Turkey, which had been set to host the negotiations. It also pushed back against the involvement of regional states, which had been expected to attend as observers when negotiations were initially slated for Istanbul.
The Islamic regime enters the talks at its most vulnerable point in years as it faces an unprecedented confluence of intensifying domestic and international pressures.
Israel severely depleted its air defences and assassinated military commanders and nuclear scientists during its June war. Trump said Iran’s nuclear programme was “obliterated” by the US’s strikes but this week he said “they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country”.
“We found out about it. I said, ‘You do that, we’re going to do . . . very bad things to you’,” he said.
The republic is also reeling from the most violent and deadliest civil unrest since the 1979 Islamic revolution after demonstrations over soaring prices erupted in December and then morphed into mass anti-regime protests.
Tehran said more than 3,000 people were killed, including hundreds of members of the security forces. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency puts the confirmed toll at almost 7,000, while opposition groups abroad claim the number runs into the tens of thousands.
But Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes, has sought to project defiance. Iranian officials have said that while Tehran is willing to seek a diplomatic end to the crisis, it is also prepared for war.
Its distrust of the US deepened after Israel launched its war against the republic in June, 48 hours before Tehran was to hold nuclear talks with the Trump administration.
Araghchi said on Friday “that Iran enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year”.
“Commitments need to be honored. Equal standing, mutual respect and mutual interest are not rhetoric — they are a must and the pillars of a durable agreement,” he said in a post on X.
Arab and Muslim states fear that if diplomacy fails and the US strikes, it could trigger a regional conflict in which Iran retaliates by targeting American bases in the Middle East and oil and gas facilities in the Gulf.