Lebanese officials discuss south Lebanon with visiting US envoy

ROME: Iran and the United States will begin having experts meet to discuss details of a possible deal over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program, the top Iranian diplomat said Saturday after a second round of negotiations in Rome.
The comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met with US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff for several hours, suggest movement in the talks. The experts will meet in Oman before Araghchi and Witkoff meet again in Oman on April 26, Araghchi said.
There was no immediate readout from the US side after the meeting at the Omani Embassy in Rome’s Camilluccia neighborhood. However, President Donald Trump has been pushing for a rapid deal with Iran while threatening military action against it.
“The talks were held in a constructive environment and I can say that is moving forward,” Araghchi told Iranian state television. “I hope that we will be in a better position after the technical talks.”
He added: “This time, we succeeded to reach a better understanding about a sort of principles and aims.”
Iranian officials described the talks as indirect, like those last weekend in Muscat, Oman, with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al-Busaidi shuttling between them in different rooms.
That talks are even happening represents a historic moment, given the decades of enmity between the two countries since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the US Embassy hostage crisis. Trump, in his first term, unilaterally withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018, setting off years of attacks and negotiations that failed to restore the accord that drastically limited Tehran’s enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Talks come as tensions rise in the Mideast
At risk is a possible American or Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, or the Iranians following through on their threats to pursue an atomic weapon. Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East have spiked over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and after US airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels killed more than 70 people and wounded dozens more.
“I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon,” Trump said Friday. “I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Araghchi met Saturday morning with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani ahead of the talks with Witkoff.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, also met Tajani on Saturday. Grossi’s agency would likely be key in verifying compliance by Iran should a deal be reached, as it did with the 2015 accord Iran reached with world powers.
Tajani said Italy was ready “to facilitate the continuation of the talks even for sessions at the technical level.”
A diplomat deal “is built patiently, day after day, with dialogue and mutual respect,” he said in a statement.
Araghchi, Witkoff both traveled ahead of talks
Both men have been traveling in recent days. Witkoff had been in Paris for talks about Ukraine as Russia’s full-scale war there grinds on. Araghchi paid a visit to Moscow, where he met with officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia, one of the world powers involved in Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal, could be a key participant in any future deal reached between Tehran and Washington. Analysts suggest Moscow could potentially take custody of Iran’s uranium enriched to 60 percent purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 percent.
Oman’s capital, Muscat, hosted the first round of negotiations between Araghchi and Witkoff last weekend, which saw the two men meet face to face after indirect talks. Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has long served as an interlocutor between Iran and the West.
Ahead of the talks, however, Iran seized on comments by Witkoff first suggesting Iran could enrich uranium at 3.67 percent, then later saying that all enrichment must stop. Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote on X before the talks that Iran would not accept giving up its enrichment program like Libya, or agreeing to using uranium enriched abroad for its nuclear program.
“Iran has come for a balanced agreement, not a surrender,” he wrote.
Iran seeks a deal to steady a troubled economy
Iran’s internal politics are still inflamed over the mandatory hijab, or headscarf, with women still ignoring the law on the streets of Tehran. Rumors also persist over the government potentially increasing the cost of subsidized gasoline in the country, which has sparked nationwide protests in the past
Iran’s rial currency plunged to over 1 million to a US dollar earlier this month. The currency has improved with the talks, however, something Tehran hopes will continue.
Meanwhile, two used Airbus A330-200 long sought by Iran’s flag carrier, Iran Air, arrived at Tehran’s Mehrabad International Airport on Thursday, flight-tracking data analyzed by The Associated Press showed. The planes, formerly of China’s Hainan Airlines, had been in Muscat and re-registered to Iran.
The aircraft have Rolls-Royce engines, which include significant American parts and servicing. Such a transaction would need approval from the US Treasury given sanctions on Iran. The State Department and Treasury did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the 2015 deal, Iran could purchase new aircraft and had lined up tens of billions of dollars in deals with Airbus and Boeing Co. However, the manufacturers backed away from the deals over Trump’s threats to the nuclear accord.

WASHINGTON: The father of a US-Israeli hostage held in Gaza said on Saturday he remains hopeful his 21-year-old son was still alive after Hamas said it could not account for his status.
Adi Alexander, whose son Edan was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured on October 7, 2023, called on the United States to engage in direct talks to free the remaining hostages – dead and alive – abducted during the deadly attack launched by Hamas two years ago in southern Israel. “I think we should engage back with them directly and see what can be done in regards to my son, four American dead hostages and everybody else,” the father said in an interview on Saturday.

“It seems like the negotiations are stalled, everything is stuck and we are kind of back to a year ago,” he added. “It’s really concerning.” Hamas had previously agreed to release Edan Alexander, believed to be the last surviving American hostage held by the militant Palestinian group, as well as the bodies of four other Americans it captured on October 7, 2023. The armed wing of Hamas said on Saturday it did not know the fate of Alexander, after noting that the guard holding him was killed. Reuters could not verify Hamas’ claim.
Hamas abducted Edan Alexander when he was 19 during its attack that killed nearly 1,200 people and triggered Israel’s ongoing incursion in Gaza, the Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas.
Edan, who holds dual nationality, grew up in New Jersey. His father said his son was an “all-American kid, great athlete ..., such a loving, loving boy” who found himself in “the wrong place, wrong time.”
Hamas recently released an undated video, purportedly of Edan. His father Adi said, “He looked very scary to us — just a horrible, horrible video.”
A hostage video is, by definition, made under duress and the statements in it are usually coerced, according to international law groups and human rights experts.
He said if he could speak to his son now, he would tell him, “Just believe. You know, nobody forgot about you. Definitely not your parents, and everybody is fighting for your release on the highest level in the States and I believe also in Israel.”
Fifty-nine hostages remain in Gaza. Fewer than half of them are believed to be still alive.
A US State Department spokesperson had no comment on the status of Alexander but reiterated that Hamas must immediately release him and all remaining hostages, and that Hamas “bears sole responsibility for the war, and for the resumption of hostilities.”