By Nadeen Ebrahim, Mostafa Salem, NCS
(NCS) — Delegations from the United States and Iran concluded indirect talks in the Gulf Arab state of Oman Friday. It was the primary spherical of negotiations between the 2 sides because the US and Israel struck the Islamic Republic last summer.
Iranian media stated the summit ended with a “willingness to continue,” with out specifying a date.
The negotiations passed off amid an American army buildup in the Middle East, and after US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran if it used lethal force against protesters or refuses to signal a nuclear deal.
Ahead of the talks, Iran’s overseas minister stated his nation “enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year.”
“We engage in good faith and stand firm on our rights,” Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.
Still, sharp language has continued on either side, with Trump saying on Thursday that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “should be very worried” as either side ready for negotiations.
Here’s what we know in regards to the talks.
Who is concerned?
Araghchi and US envoy Steve Witkoff took half in the talks, together with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The talks have been oblique – mediated by Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who earlier on Friday met with every of the events individually.
In photographs launched by the state-run Oman News Agency, the commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, was additionally seen attending the conferences.
Negotiations are meant to undertake a format related to earlier rounds, Iranian media stated. Before the 12-day Iran-Israel struggle in June, Tehran and Washington had gone through five rounds of negotiations, the place Omani mediators shuttled between US and Iranian delegations.
Those talks successfully got here to an finish after Israel struck Iranian nuclear and army websites in mid-June, after which the US struck three Iranian nuclear services.
What was mentioned?
Araghchi offered to his Omani counterpart a “preliminary plan” to “manage the current situation” between Iran and the US, Iranian media reported, in a bid to advance negotiations.
Albusaidi then conveyed the plan to the US delegation led by Witkoff, and the American response will probably be delivered to the Iranian facet in the course of the talks, Iranian media added.
The scope of the talks was unclear. Before the talks, Iranian officers insisted they solely needed to focus on points associated to the nuclear program, and that different issues corresponding to Iran’s ballistic missile program, proxies throughout the area and home unrest have been off-limits.
The US had demanded a broader set of discussions that features ballistic missiles, Tehran’s armed proxies that stay a hazard to US and Israeli pursuits in the area, and Iran’s latest brutal crackdown on protests.
On the nuclear concern, a key level of competition stays Iran’s demand to enrich uranium – a nuclear gas that can be utilized to make a bomb if purified to excessive ranges – which the US and its allies reject. Iran has provided to place checks on its nuclear program to make sure that it isn’t weaponized, demanding the lifting of sanctions in return.
What’s at stake?
The US moved army belongings, together with the USS Abraham Lincoln provider strike group, nearer to the Middle East, elevating issues that prospects of struggle have been rising.
Trump stated final month that the US had “an armada” transferring towards Iran “just in case,” including that whereas he would somewhat not “see anything happen,” his administration is watching Iran “very closely.”
The talks gave rise to hopes {that a} full-blown struggle could also be averted.
Wary of a battle which will spill into the remainder of the Middle East, regional international locations have been making an attempt to de-escalate and deter Trump from launching an assault on Iran, realizing {that a} new struggle will solely plunge the area into disaster.
“Overshadowing this is a very serious threat of military attack (on Iran) and war,” Negar Mortazavi,” an Iranian-American journalist and political analyst, informed NCS’s Eleni Giokos
.Iran has made it clear that any US assault won’t be met with the identical “restraint” it confirmed final summer time, after Israel and the US struck the nation.
Iran has numerous instruments at its disposal ought to struggle escape with the US or Israel. It is believed to have hundreds of missiles and drones that might goal US troops and belongings in the Middle East.
Tehran has repeatedly warned that it will retaliate in opposition to US allies in the area if attacked. When US bombers struck Iranian nuclear services in the summer time, Iran launched an unprecedented missile strike in Qatar, concentrating on al-Udeid Air Base, the biggest US army set up in the Middle East.
Iran may additionally mobilize an unlimited community of proxies throughout the area, probably hitting Israel and US bases, and disrupting transport in the Strait of Hormuz, a slender waterway by means of which greater than a fifth of the world’s oil and a big share of liquefied pure fuel circulation. This may ship shockwaves by means of the world.
Despite the talks, “the threat of war is very serious,” Mortazavi stated.
The-NCS-Wire
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NCS’s Fred Pleitgen, Jessie Yeung, Jennifer Hansler, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Todd Symons contributed to this report.