Delegations from the United States and Iran concluded indirect talks in the Gulf Arab nation of Oman on Friday. This was the first round of negotiations between the two countries since the United States and Israel attacked the Islamic Republic last summer.
The U.S. and Iran have agreed to continue talks after the capital talks, according to people familiar with the negotiations, an outcome that is cautiously viewed as positive for both sides.
The talks come amid a growing U.S. military buildup in the Middle East and after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to attack Iran if it uses lethal force against protesters or refuses to sign a nuclear deal.
Prior to the meeting, Iran’s foreign minister said that his country would “approach diplomacy with a clear eye and a steady memory of last year.”
“We work with integrity and stand up for our rights,” Abbas Aragushi wrote about X.
Still, acrimonious language persists between the two sides, with President Trump saying Thursday that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei should be “very concerned” as both sides prepare to negotiate.
Here’s what we know about the talks.
Arraguchi, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended the meeting. The talks were indirect, mediated by Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who met separately with each party early Friday.
Photos released by the state-run Oman News Agency also showed Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), also attending the meeting.
According to Iranian media, the negotiations will follow a similar format to previous rounds. Before the 12-day Iran-Israel war began in June, Iran and Washington had gone through five rounds of negotiations, with Omani mediators shuttled between American and Iranian delegations.
These talks effectively ended in mid-June when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear and military facilities, followed by the United States’ attack on three Iranian nuclear facilities.
In order to move negotiations forward, Araghchi presented the Omani side with an “interim plan” to “manage the current situation” between Iran and the United States, according to Iranian media.
Mr. al-Busaidi will then inform the U.S. delegation led by Mr. Witkov of the plan, and the U.S. response will be conveyed to the Iranian side during the talks, Iranian media added.
The scope of the talks was unclear. Before the meeting, Iranian officials had insisted they wanted to discuss only issues related to its nuclear program and that other issues, including Iran’s ballistic missile program, its regional proxies and domestic unrest, were off-limits.
The United States had called for a broader discussion that included ballistic missiles, Tehran’s armed proxies, which remain dangerous to U.S. and Israeli interests in the region, and Iran’s brutal crackdown on recent protests.
On the nuclear issue, the main point of contention remains Iran’s demand for enrichment of uranium, a nuclear fuel that can be refined to high levels to make bombs, a request rejected by the United States and its allies. Iran has offered to conduct inspections to ensure its nuclear program has not been weaponized, and has demanded sanctions be lifted in return.
After the talks ended on Friday, the United States imposed new sanctions on Iranian oil and 14 ships carrying it in a sign it wants to continue economic pressure.
“Instead of investing in the well-being of its own people and its crumbling infrastructure, the Iranian regime continues to fund destabilizing activities around the world and escalates repression inside Iran,” said State Department Deputy Spokesman Tommy Piggott.
The United States has moved military assets, including the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, closer to the Middle East, raising concerns that war is becoming more likely.
President Trump said last month that the United States had an “armada” against Iran “just in case” and added that while he didn’t want to see “what happens,” his administration was watching Iran “very closely.”
The talks raised hopes that all-out war might be averted.
Regional countries, wary of the conflict’s potential to spill over to other parts of the Middle East, are trying to quell and stop Trump’s escalation of attacks on Iran, knowing that another war would only plunge the region into crisis.
“Overshadowing this issue is the very serious threat of military attack and war[against Iran],” Iranian-American journalist and political analyst Negar Mortazavi told CNN’s Eleni Dziokos.
Iran has made clear that it will not respond to any attack by the United States with the kind of “restraint” it showed after Israel and the United States attacked the country last summer.
Iran has many tools at its disposal in the event of war with the United States or Israel. It is believed to have thousands of missiles and drones that could target U.S. forces and assets in the Middle East.
The Iranian government has repeatedly warned US allies in the region that it would retaliate if attacked. When U.S. bombers attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in the summer, Iran launched an unprecedented missile attack on Qatar, targeting al-Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East.
Iran could also mobilize a vast network of proxies across the region to attack Israeli and U.S. military bases and disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which more than a fifth of the world’s oil and most of its liquefied natural gas flows. This could send shockwaves around the world.
Despite the talks, “the threat of war remains very serious,” Mortazavi said.
