Khamenei urges military vigilance a day after US-Iran talks in Oman

“In my view, for a first session, it was a constructive meeting,” Araghchi said in remarks published by Iranian media after the talks.

“It was conducted in a calm and very respectful environment. No inappropriate language was used, and both parties demonstrated their intent to pursue these negotiations toward an agreement from an equal footing.”

The meeting, facilitated through shuttle diplomacy by Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, lasted about two and a half hours, he added.

Araghchi confirmed that Busaidi moved between the Iranian and American delegations four times to relay messages.

The Iranian official said that Tehran is not interested in drawn-out or symbolic dialogue. “We and the other side both believe in avoiding time-wasting negotiations. The US also indicated that it seeks a fair and timely agreement,” he added.

A second session is expected to be held next Saturday. Araghchi said while Oman will continue to host the process, the physical location may change.

The White House also described the exchange as a rare moment of diplomacy amid longstanding tensions.

US and Iranian officials held “very positive and constructive” talks in Muscat on Saturday, the White House said in a statement.

Special Presidential Envoy Steven Witkoff, accompanied by Ambassador Ana Escrogima, met Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in talks hosted by Oman’s foreign minister.

“Special Envoy Witkoff underscored to Dr. Araghchi that he had instructions from President Trump to resolve our two nations’ differences through dialogue and diplomacy, if that is possible. These issues are very complicated, and Special Envoy Witkoff’s direct communication today was a step forward in achieving a mutually beneficial outcome,” added the statement.

The talks should be treated as a national decision rather than a partisan initiative, said the former Deputy Speaker of Iran’s Parliament Ali Motahari.

“These talks are a decision by the entire system and must not be portrayed as imposed by one faction,” said Motahari, a conservative politician known for outspoken views, in an interview with Rouydad24 on Saturday.

Motahari pointed to the 2015 nuclear agreement as an example of what could be achieved through engagement but also how easily it could unravel.

“In the two years the JCPOA was implemented, we saw single-digit inflation and higher economic growth,” he said. “Let’s not allow partisan competition sabotage this round.”

The outcome of this round would signal whether “the negotiations are on a constructive track and whether the other side seeks a fair resolution or talks from a position of dominance,” he said.

From the Reformist camp, a former official also called for sidelining powerful domestic actors who benefit from Iran’s continued isolation.

“To advance negotiations and end sanctions, the government must disarm the so-called sanctions profiteers,” said Mohammad Hashemi, the brother of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in an interview with Khabar Online website.

Hashemi warned that these groups, though few in number, wield significant influence and have actively worked to destabilize the new government.

“Their power lies in chaos. Without confronting them, real progress is impossible,” he added.

He also offered a cautious assessment of US President Donald Trump.

“Trump has no credible track record. He tore up the nuclear deal and ordered the killing of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani,” Hashemi said.

“But he’s also a businessman, not a warmonger. He prefers deals over war.”

Iranian officials insist the program is peaceful, but Tehran's uranium enrichment expansions have concerned Western powers and led to warnings from Israel and the United States of possible military action.

When and why did Iran start its nuclear program?

Iran's nuclear activities began in the 1950s under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as one component of a US-supported initiative to promote civilian nuclear power in allied nations. The United States helped Iran build its initial research reactor at Tehran University under the Atoms for Peace initiative. The shah envisioned a grid of reactors to power Iranian cities, coupled with enhancing the scientific stature of the country.

Iran had by the 1970s signed with France and West Germany a deal to build a number of reactors. America had in principle agreed to allow Iran to establish a full nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrichment and reprocessing — technology that is sensitive as it could be used to produce fuel for civilian reactors or weapons.

Western countries considered Iran a reliable ally at the time, and little global outcry was expressed over the program. That all changed with the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

What happened to the program after the Islamic Revolution?

When the shah was overthrown and Ruhollah Khomeini established the Islamic Republic, most of Iran's nuclear activities came to a halt. Foreign suppliers stepped back. Several nuclear facilities were abandoned or left unfinished. Iran's new leaders, wary of Western influence and burdened with war against Iraq, relegated nuclear development to the bottom of their agenda.

But by the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran began to restart its program. The Islamic Republic signed agreements with Russia and Pakistan and ramped up activity at facilities like Natanz and Arak. These efforts raised suspicions, especially because Iran was operating some of its facilities clandestinely.

The IAEA was not aware of all the construction, and suspicions mounted about whether Iran's intentions were strictly civilian or not.

What contributed to the nuclear standoff?

The dissident opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran revealed in 2002 two secret Iranian nuclear sites at Natanz and Arak. The revelation shocked Western intelligence and led to a request by the UN nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), for an inquiry.

Inspectors confirmed the existence of indications that Iran had conducted activity pertinent to acquiring a nuclear weapon — such as experiments on high-explosives and possible models for missile warheads.

Iran said it intended to acquire only nuclear power and not an atomic bomb. Yet its concealment of the operations from reporting contravened Iran's safeguards treaty to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that it had signed.

As a counter, the UN Security Council imposed a set of resolutions that insisted Iran stop suspending its reprocessing and enrichment. Sanctions were enforced upon Iran's defense, energy, and banking. The confrontation hardened over the decade that followed.

What was the purpose of the 2015 nuclear accord?

After years of negotiations, Iran and six of the world's top powers — US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and China — agreed on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in July 2015.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to restrict uranium enrichment to 3.67% purity — well short of weapons-grade. The deal also limited Iran's partially enriched uranium stockpile to 300 kilograms. It dismantled and stored thousands of centrifuges. It agreed to intrusive IAEA inspections such as supply chain tracking and declared facilities.

In return, Iran gained relief from international sanctions, including the unfreezing of billions in foreign assets and re-entry into international oil markets.

The US administration's allies greeted the deal as a major non-proliferation achievement. President Barack Obama called it "a long-term deal that will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

The United States why pulled out of the deal?

The United States withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, when then-President Donald Trump announced that the agreement had failed to prevent Iran from expanding its ballistic missile program or aiding armed groups across the region.

Announcing the deal "a disaster," Trump reimposed sweeping sanctions in what his administration described as a "maximum pressure" campaign to push Iran to accept more restrictive terms.

“Iran’s leaders will naturally say that they refuse to negotiate a new deal. That’s fine. I’d probably say the same thing if I were in their position. But the fact is, they’re going to want to make a new and lasting deal,” Trump said at the White House at the time of the withdrawal announcement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed in a series of quarterly reports that Iran remained in compliance throughout the remainder of Trump's term — including May, August, and November 2018 inspections, as well as early 2019.

Tehran's gradual erosion of the accord came only after Joe Biden's election. On January 4, 2021, just over two weeks before Biden took office, Iran resumed 20% enrichment at its Fordow plant. In February, it prevented IAEA inspectors from visiting its facilities and began producing uranium enriched to 60% by mid-April — far beyond the limit of the accord's 3.67%, but short of the 90% necessary for weapons-grade material.

Iran currently has a reserve of enriched uranium above the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) threshold, enriched to 60% purity, according to the IAEA.

Although Biden officials have spoken of Trump's withdrawal as the trigger for the deal's collapse, timelines show that Iran did not commit serious violations until the end of Trump's presidency.

How close is Iran to developing a nuclear weapon?

According to US intelligence estimates Tehran is now able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon within weeks if it were to decide to do so.

In a recent TV interview, Ali Larijani, the Supreme Leader's chief adviser warned that Iran will be able to make weapons if pushed into a corner. “If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” he said.

The IAEA has expressed concern about traces of uranium that remain unidentified at undeclared locations and reports that Iran has not provided sufficient explanations on a number of issues that remain outstanding.

What is the official position of Iran?

Iran continues to say that its nuclear program is peaceful. "The official stance of Iran in rejecting weapons of mass destruction and regarding the peaceful nature of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is clear," foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said.

But officials generally follow such statements with warnings regarding self-defense. Baghaei cited a recent speech of the Supreme Leader to the effect that Iran would arm itself "to the extent necessary for the defense of Iran."

Iranian leaders present the US and Israel as the aggressors. "The enmity from the US and Israel has always been there. They threaten to attack us, which we don’t think is very probable, but if they commit any mischief, they will surely receive a strong reciprocal blow," Khamenei said in March 2025.

Why are the US and Iran negotiating now?

US and Iranian officials conduct talks in Oman hoping to revive the nuclear talks. The discussions, President Trump announced, will be direct, while Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that communication would be through intermediaries.

The diplomatic push coincides with rising tensions. Trump has sent a letter to Khamenei threatening to punitive military strikes if there is no deal. “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,’” Trump said.

What is Israel's role in the nuclear standoff?

Israel has always opposed the JCPOA and sees a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. Israel is believed to have orchestrated sabotage plots against Iranian nuclear facilities and assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in the last two decades, based on intelligence officials quoted by several Western news outlets.

Although Israel has not publicly taken responsibility of all the incidents, it has committed to acting if diplomacy fails. Iran has, in turn, correlated its nuclear stance with the danger of Israel's undeclared nuclear capacity and record of strikes.

What's on the line now?

With Iran's uranium enrichment to new record levels and diplomacy at an impasse, the threat of escalation hangs perilously close. The deployment of US B-2 bombers to the region, as well as Tehran's threat to employ its underground cities of missiles as a counter-attack, is what accentuates the mounting tension. The crisis has been amplified by further incendiary language against Iran from Donald Trump.

Both sides still express a preference for negotiation, but there is profound mutual distrust. America wants tighter terms; Iran demands sanctions relief and guarantees the deal won't collapse like before.

The success of current efforts has the potential to decide not just Iran's nuclear future but the broader dynamics of Middle Eastern security for decades to come.

The next court session is scheduled for Friday, May 16.

Nandito Badea, 20, and George Stana, 24, appeared via video link and used a translator to address the court. Both are being held in Belmarsh, a high-security prison in southeast London.

The pair were arrested in Romania in connection with the stabbing of Zeraati and extradited to the United Kingdom under an existing agreement between the two countries.

An indictment was issued against them following a review of evidence from the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command. The charges include causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Zeraati was attacked on March 29 outside his residence in Wimbledon, south London, and sustained injuries to his leg. He was discharged from hospital two days later. The motive for the attack remains undetermined, but the case is being handled by counterterrorism investigators given previous threats to journalists at Iran International.

In October, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Iranian government uses criminal groups to target individuals in Western countries.

The Iranian government has denied any involvement in the attack.

For years, the Sultanate has supported diplomatic back-channels between the United States and Iran, and has built up a record as a credible intermediary trusted by both sides.

Rather than act as a mediator, as other regional states such as Qatar have done, and participate in direct talks themselves, the Omani approach is to create the spaces in which dialogue can take place, thus acting more as a facilitator.

A combination of historical and geographical factors explains Oman’s pragmatic facilitation of diplomacy as a key element in its foreign policy approach.

Unlike several of its Gulf neighbors, Oman has not had a history of poor relations with Tehran, and Omanis recall that Iran under the Shah provided important support to Sultan Qaboos during the early years of his reign in the 1970s.

Even after the Iranian revolution ousted the Shah in 1979 and ushered in the theocracy headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, Oman stood aside from the regional rivalries and competition for geopolitical influence in the Gulf.

The contours of Omani foreign policy were usefully set out in 2003 by Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, a career diplomat who became Foreign Minister in 2020.

Albusaidi said "it is possible for a small state to carve out for itself a degree of relative autonomy" and "we try to make use of our intermediate position between larger powers to reduce the potential for conflict in our immediate neighborhood."

Avoiding 'I told you so'

As such, Omani officials have sought to ensure that disputes and flashpoints which have the potential to escalate into outright conflict, and thereby threaten economic and political stability and regional security, can be addressed before they spiral out of control, by leveraging their ability to engage with all sides.

Oman’s support for the backchannel that enabled US and Iranian officials to meet secretly for multiple rounds of talks in 2012 and 2013 is the most well-known example of such facilitation.

The clandestine contacts were detailed by Bill Burns, then Deputy Secretary of State, in his memoir, written before he returned to office as Director of the CIA in 2021. Burns described how the chief of Sultan Qaboos’s court and the head of Omani intelligence "greeted both delegations as we walked into the meeting room" and "offered a few brief words of welcome and then departed."

The talks succeeded in laying the framework for the subsequent P5+1 negotiation which led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iran nuclear deal, in 2015, from which Trump withdrew in 2018 during his first term.

The JCPOA collapsed in acrimony and appeared to prove Burns’s point when he wrote that Araghchi and his co-delegation leader, Majid Takht-Revanchi, "would sometimes confide in me that they had a Supreme Leader who was just waiting to say 'I told you so' and prove that the Americans could not be trusted."

Secret no more

Omani officials continued to act as periodic intermediaries between Tehran and Washington. This included hosting indirect talks in 2023 and again in 2024 that involved White House Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri that addressed the Houthi attacks on maritime shipping and the tit-for-tat Israeli and Iranian military strikes that threatened all-out regional war.

With this record in mind, it was unsurprising that the Iranian leadership responded to a letter from Trump, delivered by an Emirati intermediary, raising the prospect of talks, through Oman in late-March.

It remains to be seen whether the talks, indirect or direct or possibly a combination of the two, may lead to any form of breakthrough, given the political constraints on both sides and the legacy of decades of distrust.

In addition, the fact that the talks have been very publicly announced is a major departure from the secrecy of the backchannel in 2013 which was more characteristic of Oman’s discreet approach to diplomacy.

The choice of venue and interlocutor nevertheless reaffirm Omani centrality to the dialogue between two arch nemeses who despise each other but trust Muscat.