The U.S. delegation, led by Steve Witkoff, on Friday, conducted two rounds of inconclusive talks with the Iranian regime negotiators in the Gulf Arab state of Oman amid alarming reports that Tehran is relocating its weapons-grade nuclear material and rebuilding its ballistic missile stockpile.
“The U.S. and Iran held several hours of nuclear negotiations in Oman on Friday, and officials from both countries indicated they expect further meetings in the coming day,” Axios reported. “These were the first face-to-face talks between the U.S. and Iran since the 12-day war last June.”
Iran appears to be dragging the negotiations, gaining time to crush the popular uprising and secure its nuclear and missile stockpile. The Guardian (UK) quoted Iranian negotiators, saying that “[f]urther talks are on the cards at a time and date yet to be determined.”
The regime seems pleased with how the talks are going. “It was a good start to the negotiations. And there is an understanding on continuing the talks,” Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Aragchi, said following the talks on Friday.
From the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage ordeal to the Obama-Kerry nuclear deal, the Mullah regime has always played for time while counting on the other side to make concessions or lose focus.
Iran dragged negotiations for two long years before agreeing to the 2015 nuclear deal. The agreement had a notorious sunset clause that would have lifted restrictions on the regime’s nuclear weapons program by 2025. It placed no caps on the ballistic missile program, allowing Tehran to further develop long-range strike capabilities.
As we reported last Sunday, Iran was removing nuclear material from at least two nuclear sites damaged in the U.S. airstrikes in June 2025. Satellite images showed that “Iranian scientists [were] attempting to recover key nuclear assets that may have survived the bombing,” The Telegraph reported.
According to The New York Times on Friday, Iran has “rapidly repaired several ballistic missile facilities” destroyed by Israel in the 12-Day War last summer.
The NYT detailed Iran’s massive efforts to rebuild its nuclear and missile capabilities:
Iran appears to have rapidly repaired several ballistic missile facilities damaged in strikes last year, but it has made only limited fixes to major nuclear sites struck by Israel and the United States, a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery suggests.The uneven pace of reconstruction offers clues about Iran’s military priorities as the United States amasses forces near it and President Trump weighs new military action. If the United States were to attack, Iran would most likely retaliate with ballistic missiles targeting Israel and U.S. assets in the region. (…)Experts who closely track Iranian nuclear and missile programs corroborated the analysis by The Times, which looked at around two dozen locations struck by Israel or the United States during the 12-day conflict last June. The Times found construction work at more than half of them.The experts cautioned that the full extent of the repairs remains unclear, given that satellite imagery offers only an aboveground view of the construction.The imagery reviewed by The Times indicates that some fixes came soon after the strikes at several missile facilities, suggesting that Iran has made missile production its short-term priority.“Threatening Israel and U.S. bases and allies in the region with missile attacks is one of Iran’s few options to deter repeat strikes on its nuclear facilities,” John P. Caves III, an expert consultant with the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at National Defense University in Washington, wrote in an email.
Meanwhile, the Khamenei regime continues to massacre Iranians in its bid to crush the protests. Amid reports of mass graves and disappearances, tens of thousands of protesters may have been killed by the regime forces in recent weeks. The Guardian observes that the actual death toll could “exceed 30,000, far surpassing official figures. The numbers are based on the conclusion that ‘officially registered deaths related to the crackdown likely represent less than 10% of the real number of fatalities,” the newspaper added.
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