Muscat (Oman), Feb 6: Iran and the United States stood poised on Friday to hold negotiations in Oman at least over Tehran’s nuclear programme after a chaotic week that initially saw plans for regional countries to take part in talks in Turkiye.
The two countries have returned to Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, months after rounds of meetings turned to ash following Israel’s launch of a 12-day war against Iran back in June. The US bombed Iranian nuclear sites during that war, likely destroying many of the centrifuges that spun uranium to near weapons-grade purity. Israel’s attacks decimated Iran’s air defences and targeted its ballistic missile arsenal as well.
US officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio believe Iran’s theocracy is now at its weakest point since its 1979 Islamic Revolution after nationwide protests last month represented the greatest challenge to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule. Khamenei’s forces responded with a bloody crackdown that killed thousands and reportedly saw tens of thousands arrested — and spurred new military threats by US President Donald Trump to target the country.
With the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships in the region, along with more fighter jets, the US now likely has the military firepower to launch an attack if it wanted. But whether attacks could be enough to force Iran to change its ways — or potentially topple its government — remains far from a sure thing.
“President Trump seeks to corner Iran into reaching a negotiated solution, strong-arming its leaders into making concessions on the nuclear deal,” said Alissa Pavia, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The Iranians, on the other hand, are weakened after years of proxy warfare, economic crisis, and internal unrest. Trump is aware of this vulnerability and is hoping to use it to extract concessions and make inroads toward a renewed nuclear agreement.”
Few details on talks ahead of meeting
The scope, nature and participants in the talks remain unclear, just hours before they were due to begin in Muscat, the Omani capital nestled in the Hajar Mountains. Officials at Oman’s borders on Thursday showed particular concern over anyone carrying cameras into the sultanate before the negotiations.
On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived at night along with multiple Iranian diplomats, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Ahead of the meeting, a top adviser to Khamenei appeared to offer the theocracy’s support to the 63-year-old career diplomat.
Araghchi “is a skilled, strategic and trustworthy negotiator at the highest levels of decision-making and military intelligence,” Ali Shamkhani wrote on X. “Soldiers of the nation in the armed forces & generals of diplomacy, acting under the order of the Leader, will safeguard the nation’s interests.”
On the US side, it appeared that talks would be led by US Mideast special envoy Steve Witkoff, a 68-year-old billionaire New York real estate mogul and longtime friend of Trump. Travelling with Witkoff on his Mideast trip so far is Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who in recent weeks has shared proposals for the Gaza Strip and took part in trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi earlier on the trip.
The two men had travelled from Abu Dhabi to Qatar on Thursday night for meetings with officials there, the Qatari-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera reported. Qatar, which shares an offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with Iran, also hosts a major US military installation that Iran attacked back in the June war.
Nuclear programme on the table at least
It remains unclear just what terms Iran will be willing to negotiate at the talks. Tehran has maintained that these talks will be on its nuclear programme. However, Al Jazeera reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar offered Iran a proposal in which Tehran would halt enrichment for three years, send its highly enriched uranium out of the country, and pledge “not initiate the use of ballistic missiles.”
Russia had signalled it would take the uranium, but Shamkhani, in an interview earlier this week, had said ending the programme or shipping out the uranium were nonstarters for the country. Meanwhile, the talks would not include any pledge by Iran over its self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a network of militias in the region allied to Tehran as a deterrent to both Israel and the US However, Israeli attacks on the militias during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip decimated the network.
Rubio, America’s top diplomat, said talks needed to include all those issues.
“I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles,” Rubio told journalists Wednesday. “That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organisations across the region. That includes the nuclear programme, and that includes the treatment of their own people.”
He added: “I’m not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we’re going to try to find out.” (AP)
