What to know as Iran and US put together for nuclear talks in Oman | EUROtoday

Iran and the United States will maintain talks Friday in Oman, their newest over Tehran’s nuclear program after Israel launched a 12-day warfare on the nation in June and the Islamic Republic launched a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

U.S. President Donald Trump has stored up stress on Iran, shifting plane carriers and different army property to the Gulf and suggesting America might assault Iran over the killing of peaceable demonstrators or if Tehran launches mass executions over the protests. Trump has pushed Iran’s nuclear program again into the body as nicely after the June warfare disrupted 5 rounds of talks held in Rome and Muscat, Oman, final 12 months.

Just hours forward of Friday’s assembly, many questions hovered over the talks, together with the scope of the agenda. While negotiations are anticipated to give attention to Iran’s nuclear program, Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week mentioned the U.S. hoped to debate different considerations, together with Iran’s ballistic missiles, help for proxy networks throughout the area and the “treatment of their own people.” Iran has mentioned it needs talks to focus solely on the nuclear situation.

Trump started the diplomacy initially by writing a letter final 12 months to Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to leap begin these talks. Khamenei has warned Iran would reply to any assault with an assault of its personal, notably because the theocracy he instructions reels following the protests.

Here’s what to find out about Iran’s nuclear program and the tensions which have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington for the reason that 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Trump writes letter to Khamenei

Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, 2025, then gave a tv interview the following day through which he acknowledged sending it. He mentioned: “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.’”

Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks whereas ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a army strike by Israel or the U.S. might goal Iranian nuclear websites.

A earlier letter from Trump throughout his first time period drew an offended retort from the supreme chief.

But Trump’s letters to North Korean chief Kim Jong Un in his first time period led to face-to-face conferences, although no offers to restrict Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program able to reaching the continental U.S.

Oman mediated earlier talks

Oman, a sultanate on the japanese fringe of the Arabian Peninsula, has mediated talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. The two males have met nose to nose after oblique talks, a uncommon incidence because of the a long time of tensions between the international locations.

It hasn’t been all clean, nevertheless. Witkoff at one level made a tv look through which he advised 3.67% enrichment for Iran might be one thing the international locations might agree on. But that’s precisely the phrases set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck below former President Barack Obama, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew America. Witkoff, Trump and different American officers within the time since have maintained Iran can haven’t any enrichment below any deal, one thing to which Tehran insists it will not agree.

Those negotiations ended, nevertheless, with Israel launching the warfare in June on Iran.

The 12-day warfare and nationwide protests

Israel launched what grew to become a 12-day warfare on Iran in June that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear websites. Iran later acknowledged in November that the assaults noticed it halt all uranium enrichment within the nation, although inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to go to the bombed websites.

Iran quickly skilled protests that started in late December over the collapse of the nation’s rial forex. Those demonstrations quickly grew to become nationwide, sparking Tehran to launch a bloody crackdown that killed 1000’s and noticed tens of 1000’s detained by authorities.

Iran’s nuclear program worries the West

Iran has insisted for many years that its nuclear program is peaceable. However, its officers more and more threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to close weapons-grade ranges of 60%, the one nation on the earth and not using a nuclear weapons program to take action.

Under the unique 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to complement uranium as much as 3.67% purity and to keep up a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 kilos). The final report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at some 9,870 kilograms (21,760 kilos), with a fraction of it enriched to 60%.

U.S. intelligence businesses assess that Iran has but to start a weapons program, however has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.” Iranian officers have threatened to pursue the bomb.

Israel, a detailed American ally, believes Iran is pursuing a weapon. It needs to see the nuclear program scrapped, in addition to a halt in its ballistic missile program and help for anti-Israel militant teams reminiscent of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas.

Decades of tense relations between Iran and the US

Iran was as soon as one of many U.S.’s prime allies within the Mideast below Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who bought American army weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally sick with most cancers, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled in opposition to his rule. The Islamic Revolution adopted, led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and created Iran’s theocratic authorities.

Later that 12 months, college college students overran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, in search of the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage disaster that noticed diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed. The Iran-Iraq warfare of the Eighties noticed the U.S. again Saddam Hussein. The “Tanker War” throughout that battle noticed the U.S. launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, whereas the U.S. later shot down an Iranian industrial airliner that the U.S. army mentioned it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy within the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear cope with world powers. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions within the Mideast that persist as we speak.

___

The Associated Press receives help for nuclear safety protection from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely answerable for all content material.