The U.S. and Iran began “indirect talks” in Oman about Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear-weapons program Saturday after President Donald Trump threatened military action if the two sides cannot reach a deal.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei announced that indirect talks led by U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi began with Oman’s mediation.
“These talks will be held at a location planned by the Omani hosts with representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States seated in separate rooms,” Baghaei said on social media. The delegations will be in separate rooms and exchange messages through Oman’s foreign minister.
Ahead of the talk, Witkoff told the Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration will begin with demands for Iran to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, but voiced openness to making compromises to reach a deal.
“I think our position begins with dismantlement of your program. That is our position today,” Witkoff said. “That doesn’t mean, by the way, that at the margin we’re not going to find other ways to find compromise between the two countries.”
Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer with no previous foreign policy experience, is a close ally of Trump who the president has trusted with handling high-stakes negotiations to halt the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
His tone towards Iran differs from the muscular approach Trump took against Tehran in his first term, including the decision to withdraw the U.S. from former President Barack Obama’s controversial nuclear agreement.
Echoing his first term, Trump issued a national security memo in February restoring maximum pressure against Iran. The memo calls for further economic sanctions, preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and fighting Iranian terror proxies and operatives inside the U.S. and elsewhere.
Earlier this week, Trump threatened Iran with potential military action to prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon. Without going into specifics, Trump floated the possibility of Israel leading the military campaign.
“If it requires military, we’re going to have military. Israel will, obviously, be … the leader of that. No one leads us. We do what we want,” Trump told reporters.
Iranian regime spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said Iran is focused on “diplomatic rationality” without theatrics during the negotiations.
“Every message, first written and clear; without theatrics, without anything on the sidelines,” she said.
The negotiations between the U.S. and Iran are happening during a time of increased tension between the two countries because of Israel’s ongoing conflict against Hamas, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, that began with Hamas’s atrocities on October 7, 2023.
Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed terror group, and the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad last year have also weakened Iran’s influence abroad. Meanwhile, the U.S. continues to strike the Houthis, another Iranian terror proxy, to limit their ability to disrupt international shipping lanes and cause chaos around the Red Sea.
Domestically, the Iranian regime is facing increased discontent due to economic struggles under current President Masoud Pezeshkian. Iran recently experienced extensive power outages despite holding some of the world’s largest natural gas reserves after decades of infrastructure mismanagement.
Iran was previously linked to threats to assassinate Trump and former officials from his first administration over the 2020 killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Moreover, Iranian hackers targeted Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign in an attempt to interfere with the 2024 election and gather intelligence.