Iran, US hold new round of high-stakes nuclear talks

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Updated 27 April 2025
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Iran, US hold new round of high-stakes nuclear talks

Iran, US hold new round of high-stakes nuclear talks
  • A third round of nuclear talks between Iran and the United States “may be extended,” Iranian state media reported Saturday, as negotiators were meeting in Oman

MUSCAT: The United States and Iran started discussing details of a potential nuclear deal in Oman Saturday as they held their third round of talks in as many weeks.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are again leading the talks, which this time include a technical-level meeting between experts from both sides.
The discussions are aimed at striking a new deal that would stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons — an objective Tehran denies pursuing — in return for relief from crippling sanctions.
US President Donald Trump pulled out of an earlier multilateral nuclear deal during his first term in office.
Saturday’s talks were taking place in a “serious atmosphere,” Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said, according to the Tasnim news agency.
Iran’s defense and missile capabilities were not on the agenda, Baqaei said separately to state TV, while an Iranian negotiator told Tasnim that the talks were “uniquely about sanctions and nuclear questions.”
Michael Anton, the State Department’s head of policy planning, leads the US expert-level delegation, while deputy foreign ministers Kazem Gharibabadi and Majid Takht-Ravanchi will lead Tehran’s, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
The talks started at around 10am (0600 GMT) with the delegations in separate rooms and communicating via the hosts, Baqaei said in a statement.
Iran’s state news agency IRNA said the talks may extend beyond Saturday, “given that the negotiations have entered technical and expert-level discussions and the examination of details.”
Araghchi earlier expressed “cautious optimism,” saying this week: “If the sole demand by the US is for Iran to not possess nuclear weapons, this demand is achievable.”
But if Washington had “impractical or illogical demands, we will naturally encounter problems,” he added.
The talks coincided with a major blast from unknown causes at Iran’s Shahid Rajaee port that injured hundreds of people and killed at least four, according to state media.
Before the talks, Trump, in an interview published Friday by Time magazine, reiterated his threat of military action if a deal fell through.
But he added that he “would much prefer a deal than bombs being dropped.” The talks began in Muscat a fortnight a go and continued in Rome last Saturday.
They are the highest-level engagement between the long-time foes since 2018, when Trump withdrew from the landmark 2015 accord that gave Iran sanctions relief in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
Since returning to office, Trump has reinstated his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions against Tehran.
In March, he wrote to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposing talks, but also warning of potential military action if diplomacy failed.
On Tuesday, Washington announced new sanctions targeting Iran’s oil network — a move Tehran described as “hostile” ahead of Saturday’s talks.
Western nations, including the United States, have long accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Tehran has consistently denied the charge, maintaining that its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes.
On Wednesday, UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi called on Iran to explain tunnels built near its Natanz nuclear site, seen in satellite imagery released by the Institute for Science and International Security.
The Washington-based think tank also noted construction of a new security perimeter.
In an interview released Wednesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated Washington’s firm stance against Iran’s uranium enrichment.
“If Iran wants a civil nuclear program, they can have one just like many other countries in the world have one: and that is they import enriched material,” he said on the Honestly podcast.
Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 percent, far above the 3.67 percent limit imposed by the 2015 deal but still below the 90 percent threshold required for weapons-grade material.
Araghchi has previously called Iran’s right to enrich uranium “non-negotiable.”
Tehran recently sought to reopen dialogue with Britain, France and Germany — also signatories to the 2015 deal — holding several rounds of nuclear talks ahead of the US meetings.
Last week, Rubio urged the three European states to decide whether to trigger the “snapback” mechanism under the 2015 agreement, which would automatically reinstate UN sanctions on Iran over its non-compliance.
The option to use the mechanism expires in October.
Iran has warned that it could withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the snapback is triggered.


Egypt denies court ruling threatens historic monastery

Egypt denies court ruling threatens historic monastery
Updated 58 min 32 sec ago
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Egypt denies court ruling threatens historic monastery

Egypt denies court ruling threatens historic monastery
  • A court in Sinai ruled on that the monastery ‘is entitled to use’ the land, which ‘the state owns as public property’
  • Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens called the court ruling ‘scandalous’

CAIRO: Egypt has denied that a controversial court ruling over Sinai’s Saint Catherine monastery threatens the UNESCO world heritage landmark, after Greek and church authorities warned of the sacred site’s status.

A court in Sinai ruled on Wednesday in a land dispute between the monastery and the South Sinai governorate that the monastery “is entitled to use” the land, which “the state owns as public property.”

President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s office defended the ruling Thursday, saying it “consolidates” the site’s “unique and sacred religious status,” after the head of the Greek Orthodox church in Greece denounced it.

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens called the court ruling “scandalous” and an infringement by Egyptian judicial authorities of religious freedoms.

He said the decision means “the oldest Orthodox Christian monument in the world, the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine in Mount Sinai, now enters a period of severe trial — one that evokes much darker times in history.”

El-Sisi’s office in a statement said it “reiterates its full commitment to preserving the unique and sacred religious status of Saint Catherine’s monastery and preventing its violation.”

The monastery was established in the sixth century at the biblical site of the burning bush in the southern mountains of the Sinai peninsula, and is the world’s oldest continually inhabited Christian monastery.

The Saint Catherine area, which includes the eponymous town and a nature reserve, is undergoing mass development under a controversial government megaproject aimed at bringing in mass tourism.

Observers say the project has harmed the reserve’s ecosystem and threatened both the monastery and the local community.

Archbishop Ieronymos warned that the monastery’s property would now be “seized and confiscated,” despite “recent pledges to the contrary by the Egyptian President to the Greek Prime Minister.”

Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis contacted his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty on Thursday, saying “there was no room for deviation from the agreements between the two parties,” the ministry’s spokesperson said.

In a statement to Egypt’s state news agency, the foreign ministry in Cairo later said rumors of confiscation were “unfounded,” and that the ruling “does not infringe at all” on the monastery’s sites or its religious and spiritual significance.

Greek government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said “Greece will express its official position ... when the official and complete content of the court decision is known and evaluated.”

He confirmed both countries’ commitment to “maintaining the Greek Orthodox religious character of the monastery.”


Israel aid blockage making Gaza ‘hungriest region on earth’, UN office says

Israel aid blockage making Gaza ‘hungriest region on earth’, UN office says
Updated 59 min 53 sec ago
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Israel aid blockage making Gaza ‘hungriest region on earth’, UN office says

Israel aid blockage making Gaza ‘hungriest region on earth’, UN office says

BERLIN: Israel is blocking all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, with almost no ready-to-eat food entering what its spokesperson described as “the hungriest place on earth.”
Spokesperson Jens Laerke said only 600 of 900 aid trucks had been authorized to get to Israel’s border with Gaza, and from there a mixture of bureaucratic and security obstacles made it all but impossible to safely carry aid into the region.
“What we have been able to bring in is flour,” he told a regular news conference on Friday. “That’s not ready to eat, right? It needs to be cooked... 100 percent of the population of Gaza is at risk of famine.”
Tommaso della Longa, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, added that half of its medical facilities in the region were out of action for lack of fuel or medical equipment.


Hamas receives Israeli response to US Gaza proposal and is reviewing it

Hamas receives Israeli response to US Gaza proposal and is reviewing it
Updated 30 May 2025
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Hamas receives Israeli response to US Gaza proposal and is reviewing it

Hamas receives Israeli response to US Gaza proposal and is reviewing it
  • Hamas: Israeli response fails to meet any of the Palestinian “just and legitimate demands”

DUBAI: Hamas has received Israel’s response to a US proposal for a Gaza ceasefire deal and is thoroughly reviewing it, even though the response fails to meet any of the Palestinian “just and legitimate demands,” group’s official Basem Naim said on Friday.


Daesh claims first attack on Syrian government forces since Assad’s fall

Daesh claims first attack on Syrian government forces since Assad’s fall
Updated 30 May 2025
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Daesh claims first attack on Syrian government forces since Assad’s fall

Daesh claims first attack on Syrian government forces since Assad’s fall
  • Daesh, which once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, is opposed to the new authority in Damascus led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa
  • Daesh was defeated in Syria in March 2019 when SDF fighters captured the last sliver of land that the extremists controlled

BEIRUT: The Daesh group has claimed responsibility for two attacks in southern Syria, including one on government forces that an opposition war monitor described as the first on the Syrian army to be adopted by the extremists since the fall of Bashar Assad.

In two separate statements issued late Thursday, Daesh said that in the first attack, a bomb was detonated targeting a “vehicle of the apostate regime,” leaving seven soldiers dead or wounded. It said the attack occurred “last Thursday,” or May 22, in the Al-Safa area in the desert of the southern province of Sweida.

Daesh said that the second attack occurred this week in a nearby area during which a bomb targeted members of the US-backed Free Syrian Army, claiming that it killed one fighter and wounded three.

There was no comment from the government on the claim of the attack and a spokesperson for the Free Syrian Army didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by The Associated Press.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the attack on government forces killed one civilian and wounded three soldiers, describing it as the first such attack to be claimed by Daesh against Syrian forces since the fall of the 54-year Assad family’s rule in December.

Daesh, which once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq, is opposed to the new authority in Damascus led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who was once the head of Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria and fought battles against Daesh.

Over the past several months, Daesh has claimed responsibility for attacks against the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast.

Daesh was defeated in Syria in March 2019 when SDF fighters captured the last sliver of land that the extremists controlled. Since then, its sleeper cells have carried out deadly attacks, mainly in eastern and northeast Syria.

In January, state media reported that intelligence officials in Syria’s post-Assad government thwarted a plan by Daesh to set off a bomb at a Shiite Muslim shrine south of Damascus.

Al-Sharaa met with US President Donald Trump in Saudi Arabia earlier this month during which the American leader said that Washington would work on lifting crippling economic sanctions imposed on Damascus since the days of Assad.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement after the meeting that Trump urged Al-Sharaa to diplomatically recognize Israel, “tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria” and help the US stop any resurgence of the Daesh group.


Israel far-right minister says ‘time to go in with full force’ in Gaza

Israel far-right minister says ‘time to go in with full force’ in Gaza
Updated 30 May 2025
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Israel far-right minister says ‘time to go in with full force’ in Gaza

Israel far-right minister says ‘time to go in with full force’ in Gaza
  • Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Friday it was time to use “full force” in Gaza, after Hamas said a new US-backed truce proposal failed to meet its demands

JERUSALEM: Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Friday it was time to use “full force” in Gaza, after Hamas said a new US-backed truce proposal failed to meet its demands.
“Mr Prime Minister, after Hamas rejected the deal proposal again — there are no more excuses,” Ben Gvir said on his Telegram channel. “The confusion, the shuffling and the weakness must end. We have already missed too many opportunities. It is time to go in with full force, without blinking, to destroy, and kill Hamas to the last one.”