US officials have arrived in Oman amid talks between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear program

MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — A convoy carrying U.S. officials arrived Friday at the site of talks between Iran and the United States as the two countries prepare to negotiate over Tehran’s nuclear program.

The talks on Friday came after a chaotic week that initially saw regional countries take part in talks in Turkey.

After Israel launched a 12-day war against Iran in June, the two countries returned to the Sultanate of Oman on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. During that war the U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites, possibly destroying many of the centrifuges that produced uranium near weapons-grade purity. Israel’s strikes have destroyed Iran’s air defenses and also targeted its ballistic missile arsenal.

Associated Press reporters saw the American convoy enter a palace on the outskirts of Muscat, near its international airport. An American flag was flying on one of the vehicles.

A vehicle carrying Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived first, Iranian state television said, as he was meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi. The convoy later left for a hotel near the airport that was being used by the Iranians.

Earlier in 2025, Oman used the same palace during the negotiations between Iran and the US.

US officials such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio believe Iran’s theocracy is now at its weakest point since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when nationwide protests last month represented the biggest challenge to the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s forces responded with a bloody crackdown that killed thousands and reportedly saw tens of thousands arrested – and prompted new military threats by US President Donald Trump to target the country.

With the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships in the region and more fighter jets, the US now has the military power to possibly strike. But whether the attacks will be enough to force Iran to change its ways — or potentially topple its government — is far from certain.

Meanwhile, Gulf Arab states fear the attack could draw them in too and start a regional war. That threat is real — already, the U.S. military shot down an Iranian drone near Lincoln and Iran tried to intercept a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

“President Trump is trying to corner Iran into a negotiated settlement by strong-arming its leaders into making concessions on the nuclear deal,” said Alyssa Pavia, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The Iranians, on the other hand, are weakened after years of proxy wars, economic crises and internal turmoil. Trump is aware of this weakness and hopes to use it to extract concessions and enter into a renewed nuclear deal.”

Some details about the talks before the meeting

The scope, nature and participants of the talks remain unclear, hours before they are due to begin in the Omani capital of Muscat, in the Hajar Mountains. On Thursday, Oman’s border officials expressed particular concern for anyone carrying a camera into the sultanate ahead of talks.

On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived overnight with several Iranian diplomats, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

Flight-tracking data showed that the plane carrying him to Muscat had originally started its journey from Tabas, Iran, the site of the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when a US special forces mission attempted to rescue hostages after the 1979 seizure of the US embassy in Tehran. A sandstorm at Tabas canceled a mission and a C-120 refueling helicopter crashed there, killing eight service members. Iran’s theocracy has long portrayed the mission as God’s defeat of the Americans.

Araghchi wrote in X that “Iran enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year.”

“Commitments need to be honored,” he wrote. “Equal status, mutual respect and mutual interest are not rhetoric – they are essential and pillars of a lasting agreement.”

Ahead of the meeting, one of Khamenei’s top advisers appeared to offer the 63-year-old career diplomat the support of the theocracy.

Araghchi is “a skilled, strategic and reliable negotiator at the highest levels of decision-making and military intelligence,” Ali Shamkhani wrote in X. “The soldiers of the nation in the armed forces and the generals of diplomacy, acting under the orders of the leader, shall protect the interests of the nation.”

On the US side, it appears that the talks are being led by US Middle East Special Envoy Steve Wittkoff, a 68-year-old billionaire New York real estate mogul and longtime friend of Trump. Joining Wittkoff on his Middle East trip so far is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has shared proposals for the Gaza Strip in recent weeks and attended trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi before the trip.

Al Jazeera, the Qatari-funded satellite news network, reported that the two men met with officials who had flown from Abu Dhabi to Qatar on Thursday night. Qatar, which shares an offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with Iran, also hosts a US military installation that Iran has retaliated against in the war.

At least the nuclear program on the table

It is not clear what terms Iran is willing to negotiate in the talks. Tehran has said the talks will only take place on its nuclear program. However, Al Jazeera reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar presented Iran with a proposal in which Tehran pledged to freeze enrichment for three years, ship its highly enriched uranium out of the country and “not to launch ballistic missiles.”

Russia had indicated it would take the uranium, but Shamkhani said in an interview earlier this week that ending the program or exporting the uranium was a non-starter for the country. Meanwhile, the talks did not include any pledges by Iran on its self-described “axis of resistance”, a network of militias in the region allied with Tehran as a deterrent to both Israel and the US, although Israeli attacks on the militias during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip destroyed the network.

Rubio, the US’s top diplomat, said talks were needed to include all those issues.

“I think in order for the talks to actually be meaningful, they have to include some things, and that includes their range of ballistic missiles,” Rubio told reporters Wednesday. “That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations throughout the region. That includes the nuclear program, and that includes the treatment of their own people.”

He added: “I’m not sure if you can deal with these guys, but we’ll try to find out.” ___

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Outrider Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content.