President Trump threatens Iran, calling supreme leader ‘very concerned’
President Trump has issued a new warning to Iran and its supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei ahead of expected talks over Iran’s nuclear program.
American and Iranian negotiators held indirect talks in Oman’s capital Muscat on February 6, with the aim of avoiding a new military conflict between the two countries and dragging the region into another war.
The talks could lead to the first face-to-face talks between the United States and Iran since June last year, when the United States bombed Iran’s main nuclear facilities as part of the 12-day war between Israel and the Islamic Republic.
Iranian state television reported in the late afternoon that talks mediated by Oman had concluded. There was little immediate indication from the White House whether the two sides found common ground during the talks. But Iran’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, characterized the talks as a good start.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The meeting came as President Donald Trump dispatched an “armada” to the Middle East that includes an aircraft carrier, as well as other warships, fighter jets, surveillance drones and advanced missile defense systems. President Trump has threatened to bomb Iran if diplomatic efforts fail.
What is the US demanding from Iran?
There are clear differences of opinion between the United States and Tehran over Iran’s nuclear program. The United States wants Iran to completely freeze its nuclear program and eliminate its stockpile of enriched uranium, a key ingredient in making nuclear weapons. Iran announced that it had halted uranium enrichment following the US bombing in June. The Iranian government has also long maintained, amid deep international skepticism, that its nuclear program is only for civilian energy purposes.
The US government has said it wants to expand talks to include Iranian ballistic missiles. support for armed groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels; And what U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “the treatment of our own people” is a reference to Iran’s recent brutal security crackdown on large demonstrations.
Aragushi said Iran wants to limit talks in Muscat with Trump’s US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to nuclear issues. Iran also wants the United States to lift economic sanctions that President Trump reimposed in 2018 when he abandoned the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal with six countries.
Foreign Minister Araghchi stated on February 6, “Iran will approach diplomacy with open eyes and with the steady memory of last year.”
What can be achieved in negotiations between the US and Iran?
Although the US and Iran remain far apart, both sides have indicated they are willing to try diplomacy again. In the short term, a successful outcome in Muscat may avert the immediate threat of a U.S. attack on Iran, but it is unlikely to resolve the larger issues on which the two sides are divided.
Experts say that if the talks are successful, both sides could signal a commitment to de-escalating tensions, which could ultimately lead to a framework for further negotiations. The Muscat talks could therefore be the beginning of a more formal negotiation process, rather than an end in itself. Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the talks were “consultations focused on creating appropriate conditions for the resumption of diplomatic and technical negotiations.”
Still, President Trump has indicated that he believes the key to successful negotiations, the key to victory, is often directness and unpredictability, whether it’s tariffs, immigration, Greenland or Venezuela.
“As long as the two countries remain this far apart and President Trump takes this hasty diplomatic approach, it could quickly lead to escalation,” said Trita Parsi, an expert on Iranian politics and U.S.-Iran relations and executive vice president at the Quincy Institute think tank in Washington, D.C.
