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Iran, US Start Crucial Talks in Oman as Confrontation Looms

(COMBO) This combination of file photos created on April 9, 2025, shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff speaking to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025 (L), and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking to AFP during an interview at the Iranian consulate in Jeddah on March 7, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN and Amer HILABI / AFP)
(COMBO) This combination of file photos created on April 9, 2025, shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff speaking to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025 (L), and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking to AFP during an interview at the Iranian consulate in Jeddah on March 7, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN and Amer HILABI / AFP)
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Iran, US Start Crucial Talks in Oman as Confrontation Looms

(COMBO) This combination of file photos created on April 9, 2025, shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff speaking to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025 (L), and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking to AFP during an interview at the Iranian consulate in Jeddah on March 7, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN and Amer HILABI / AFP)
(COMBO) This combination of file photos created on April 9, 2025, shows US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff speaking to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 6, 2025 (L), and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaking to AFP during an interview at the Iranian consulate in Jeddah on March 7, 2025. (Photo by Mandel NGAN and Amer HILABI / AFP)

Iran and the United States started high-stakes negotiations on Friday to try to overcome sharp differences over Tehran's nuclear program, with Oman shuttling between the sides, but a dispute over widening the agenda risks derailing diplomacy and triggering another Middle East conflict. 

While both sides have signaled readiness to revive diplomacy over Tehran's long-running nuclear row with the West, Washington wants to expand the talks to also cover Iran's ballistic missiles, support for armed groups around the region and "treatment of their own people", US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday. 

Iran has said it wants Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss only the nuclear issue in Muscat. US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who helped mediate in Gaza ceasefire talks, is also due to take part in the discussions. 

"Iran ‌enters diplomacy with ‌open eyes and a steady memory of the past year. We engage in good ‌faith ⁠and stand firm ‌on our rights. Commitments need to be honored," Araghchi said on X on Friday. 

An Iranian official told Reuters the talks have not officially started, although Iran’s demands have been conveyed to the United States via Oman. The official said indirect negotiations "possibly" would begin after a meeting between Witkoff and Oman’s foreign minister. Previous Iran-US talks adopted a shuttle diplomacy approach. 

Tehran's clerical leadership remains deeply worried that Trump may still carry out his threats to strike Iran after a military buildup by the US Navy near Iran. 

In June, the US struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in the final stages of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign. Tehran has since said its uranium enrichment work has stopped. The US naval buildup, which Trump ⁠has called a massive “armada”, has followed a bloody government crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran last month, heightening tensions between Washington and Tehran. 

Trump has warned that "bad things" would probably ‌happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on the ‍Iranian Republic in a standoff that has led to mutual threats ‍of air strikes. 

"While these negotiations are taking place, I would remind the Iranian regime that the president has many options at ‍his disposal, aside from diplomacy, as the commander-in-chief of the most powerful military in the history of the world," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday told reporters. Iran has vowed a harsh response to any military strike and has cautioned countries hosting US bases that they could be in the firing line if they were involved in an attack. Iran has one of the Middle East's biggest stockpiles of ballistic missiles. 

MISSILE PROGRAM IS A RED LINE FOR TEHRAN 

Negotiators in Oman will have to navigate Iran's red line on discussing its missile program to reach a deal and avert future military action. Tehran ⁠has flatly ruled out talks on its "defense capabilities, including missiles and their range." 

In a show of defiance, Iran’s state TV said hours before the talks that “one of the country’s most advanced long-range ballistic missiles, the Khorramshahr-4,” had been deployed at one of the Revolutionary Guards’ vast underground “missile cities”. 

However, Tehran is willing to show "flexibility on uranium enrichment, including handing over 400 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and accepting zero enrichment under a consortium arrangement as a solution," Iranian officials told Reuters last week. 

Iran also insists that its right to enrich uranium is not negotiable and demands the lifting of sanctions, reimposed since 2018 when Trump ditched Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with six powers. 

The United States, its European allies and Israel accuse Tehran of using its nuclear program as a veil for efforts to try to develop the capability to produce weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. 

Israel has likened the danger of Iran's missiles to its nuclear program. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in January that Iran's "attempt to build atomic weapons" and "20,000 ballistic missiles" were like "two lumps of cancer". Tehran's influence throughout the region ‌has weakened severely with its regional allies - known as the "Axis of Resistance" - either dismantled or badly hurt since the start of the Hamas-Israel conflict in Gaza and the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. 

 

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World

USS Ford Aircraft Carrier Departs Middle East after Record-breaking Deployment

The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford departs Souda Bay on the island of Crete on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Costas METAXAKIS / AFP)
The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford departs Souda Bay on the island of Crete on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Costas METAXAKIS / AFP)
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USS Ford Aircraft Carrier Departs Middle East after Record-breaking Deployment

The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford departs Souda Bay on the island of Crete on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Costas METAXAKIS / AFP)
The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford departs Souda Bay on the island of Crete on February 26, 2026. (Photo by Costas METAXAKIS / AFP)

The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, will be heading home following a record-setting deployment of more than 300 days that included participating in the war against Iran and capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, two US officials said Wednesday.

The Ford will be leaving the Middle East in the coming days and returning to its home port in Virginia in mid-May, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to detail sensitive military movements. The Washington Post reported the development earlier.

The arrival of the USS George H.W. Bush to the region last week meant three American aircraft carriers were deployed to the Middle East — a number not seen since 2003 — during a tenuous ceasefire in the Iran war. USS Abraham Lincoln also has been in the region since January as tensions with Tehran ramped up.

This month, the Ford broke the US record for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, a nearly 10-month span after leaving Naval Station Norfolk in June, The Associated Press reported.

The ship’s 295th day at sea surpassed the previous longest deployment by an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years, when the Lincoln was sent out for 294 days in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data compiled by US Naval Institute News, a news outlet run by the US Naval Institute, a nonprofit organization.

The Ford's long deployment has raised questions about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods as well as increasing strain on the ship and its equipment, with the carrier already enduring a fire that forced it to undergo lengthy repairs.

Asked about the Ford's long deployment in a hearing Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he consulted with the Navy and those officials did mention readiness and maintenance tradeoffs.

"Multiple times the operational requirements — whether it was down in Southcom or up to Centcom — demanded additional assets in real time, which through a tough decision-making process led to an extension,” Hegseth said, referring to US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, and US Central Command in the Middle East.

The Ford began its deployment by heading to the Mediterranean Sea. It was then rerouted to the Caribbean Sea in October as part of the largest naval buildup in the region in generations.

The carrier took part in the military operation to capture Maduro. Then it would see more battle, heading toward the Middle East as tensions with Iran escalated.

The carrier took part in the opening days of the Iran war from the Mediterranean Sea before going through the Suez Canal and heading into the Red Sea in early March.

However, a fire in one of its laundry spaces forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs, leaving hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.

The Ford’s 295-day deployment falls short of the longest deployment during the Cold War, a record held by the now-decommissioned USS Midway. It was deployed for 332 days in 1972 and 1973.

More recently, the crew of the USS Nimitz was on duty and away from home for a total of 341 days in 2020 and 2021. However, that included extended isolation periods ashore in the US meant to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

World

New Zealand Court Rejects Mosque Gunman’s Appeal to Abandon his Guilty Pleas

FILE - Brenton Tarrant appears in the Christchurch District Court, in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Brenton Tarrant appears in the Christchurch District Court, in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP, File)
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New Zealand Court Rejects Mosque Gunman’s Appeal to Abandon his Guilty Pleas

FILE - Brenton Tarrant appears in the Christchurch District Court, in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Brenton Tarrant appears in the Christchurch District Court, in Christchurch, New Zealand, March 16, 2019. (Mark Mitchell/Pool Photo via AP, File)

The white supremacist who shot to death 51 Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, lost an attempt to abandon his guilty pleas at the country’s Court of Appeal on Thursday.

The panel of three judges dismissed Brenton Tarrant’s claim that harsh prison conditions prompted his involuntarily admission to the terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges he faced. The Australian man, who is now 35, murdered 51 worshippers and injured dozens more in March 2019 when he drove to two Christchurch mosques and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons during Friday prayers.

Tarrant’s guilty pleas in March 2020 brought relief to bereaved families and survivors of the attack, who dreaded the prospect of a lengthy trial and feared he would use it to air his hateful views. The failure of his appeal bid — which the court noted was made 505 days after the legal deadline for it to be filed — means such a trial has again been averted.

At the court's five-day hearing in February, the attacker argued his admissions of guilt were provoked by “irrationality” induced by poor mental health, which led him to desert his racist views for a time. The judges concluded, however, that his claims of mental illness were inconsistent and weren’t supported by prison staff, mental health professionals or lawyers who had earlier represented him.

“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the judges wrote, according to The Associated Press.

“He endeavored to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”

FILE - An armed policeman patrols the grounds at the Al Noor mosque following the previous week's mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 23, 2019. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)

The court's ruling also revealed that Tarrant sought to abandon his appeal shortly after making his case at the hearing in February. The judges rejected that bid too, writing that the case was “of significant public interest and should be finally determined.”

They suggested that Tarrant “began to form the opinion that the hearing was not proceeding in his favor, and as a result decided to file a notice of abandonment after the hearing concluded.”

New Zealand law doesn’t require judges to allow an appellant to quit an appeal bid once it’s underway.

He will remain in jail for life Tarrant, who has since fired the lawyers acting for him in February, remains in Auckland Prison, where he was sentenced in August 2020 to spend life in prison without the chance of parole. The judges allowed him to abandon his appeal that sentence, which was scheduled to be heard later in 2026.

The Australian-born man moved to New Zealand in 2017 with a plan to commit a mass shooting. He amassed a cache of weapons and made a reconnaissance trip to the sites of his planned crimes before the attack.

The appeal court judges wrote that Tarrant had accepted the summary of facts presented to him by the police and the sentencing judge and noted that the case against him was “overwhelming.”

Evidence included footage of the attack that the shooter filmed himself and livestreamed on the internet, in which he showed his own face, and a document outlining his racist views that he published online before the attacks under his real name.

World

King Charles to Visit New York to Commemorate 9/11 Victims

US President Donald Trump alongside Britain's King Charles III during a dinner at the White House (AP)
US President Donald Trump alongside Britain's King Charles III during a dinner at the White House (AP)
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King Charles to Visit New York to Commemorate 9/11 Victims

US President Donald Trump alongside Britain's King Charles III during a dinner at the White House (AP)
US President Donald Trump alongside Britain's King Charles III during a dinner at the White House (AP)

Britain's King Charles and his wife Queen Camilla arrive in New York on Wednesday to commemorate victims of the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attack on the city, part of a four-day state visit to the US.

The king and queen's visit to New York follows a packed day in Washington on Tuesday, when Charles delivered a speech to the US Congress, held private meetings with President Donald Trump amid tensions between the US and Britain over the Iran war, and sat down with leaders of the US tech industry.

At a White House state dinner on Tuesday night, Trump suggested Charles told the president he did not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. The king is not a spokesman for the UK government and it could not be confirmed that Charles made the statement to Trump.

Britain was one of the countries alongside the US that negotiated the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, which sharply limited Tehran's nuclear programs and opened them to inspectors until Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the agreement during his first White House term.

Charles and Camilla's visit to New York comes on the third day of their state visit to the US during a tense time in relations between the US and Britain after Trump has repeatedly criticized Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for what Trump says is his lack of help in prosecuting the Iran war.

Charles and Camilla will begin their day in New York with a ceremony at the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by al Qaeda suicide bombers on September 11, 2001, an attack that killed nearly 2,800 people.

Charles is expected to meet with New York City's mayor, Zohran Mamdani, at the ceremony.

The king will then head to Harlem to visit a grassroots community organization that created a sustainable after-school urban farming initiative in an effort to combat food insecurity, according to local media. Such projects have been a passion of the king's for decades.

Meanwhile, Camilla will celebrate the 100th birthday of A.A. Milne’s fictional character Winnie-the-Pooh on behalf of her charity, The Queen’s Reading Room, which Buckingham Palace is calling a "literary engagement" event.