DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) —Iranand the United States will hold talks Friday in Oman, their latest over Tehran's nuclear program after Israel launcheda 12-day war on the countryin June and the Islamic Republic launcheda bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.
Trump
U.S. President Donald Trump has kept up pressure on Iran, suggesting America could attack Iranover the killing of peaceful demonstratorsor if Tehran launches mass executions over the protests. Meanwhile, Trump has pushed Iran's nuclear program back into the frame as well after the June war disrupted five rounds of talks held in Rome and Muscat, Oman, last year.
Trump began the diplomacy initially by writing a letter last year to Iran's 86-year-oldSupreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneito jump start these talks. Khamenei has warned Iran would respond to any attack with an attack of its own, particularly as the theocracy he commands reels following the protests.
Here's what to know about Iran's nuclear program and the tensions that have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Trump writes letter to Khamenei
Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, 2025, thengave a television interview the next dayin which he acknowledged sending it. He said: "I've written them a letter saying, 'I hope you're going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing.'"
Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks while ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a military strike by Israel or the U.S. could target Iranian nuclear sites.
A previous letter from Trump during his first term drew an angry retort from the supreme leader.
But Trump's letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term led to face-to-face meetings, thoughno deals to limit Pyongyang's atomic bombsand a missile program capable of reaching the continental U.S.
Oman mediated previous talks
Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has mediatedtalksbetweenIranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff. The two men have met face to face after indirect talks, a rare occurrence due to the decades of tensions between the countries.
It hasn't been all smooth, however. Witkoff at one point made a television appearance in which he suggested 3.67% enrichment for Iran could be something the countries could agree on. But that's exactly the terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck under former President Barack Obama, from whichTrump unilaterally withdrew America. Witkoff, Trump and other American officials in the time since have maintained Iran can have no enrichment under any deal, something to which Tehran insists it won't agree.
Those negotiations ended, however, with Israel launching the war in June on Iran.
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The 12-day war and nationwide protests
Israel launched what becamea 12-day war on Iranin June that includedthe U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites. Iran later acknowledged in November that the attacks saw ithalt all uranium enrichment in the country, though inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have been unable to visit the bombed sites.
Iran soon experienced protests that began in late December over the collapse of the country's rial currency. Those demonstrations soon became nationwide, sparking Tehran to launch a bloody crackdownthat killed thousandsand saw tens of thousands detained by authorities.
Iran's nuclear program worries the West
Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officialsincreasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.
Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's program put its stockpile at some 9,870 kilograms (21,760 pounds), with a fraction of it enriched to 60%.
U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has "undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so." Iranian officials have threatened to pursue the bomb.
Decades of tense relations between Iran and the US
Iran was once one of the U.S.'s top allies in the Mideast underShah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. TheCIA had fomented a 1953 coupthat cemented the shah's rule.
But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule.The Islamic Revolution followed, led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and created Iran's theocratic government.
Later that year, university studentsoverran the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah's extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the U.S. severed.The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980ssaw the U.S. back Saddam Hussein.The "Tanker War"during that conflict saw the U.S. launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, while the U.S. latershot down an Iranian commercial airlinerthat the U.S. military said it mistook for a warplane.
Iran and the U.S. have seesawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. ButTrump unilaterally withdrew America from the accordin 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that persist today.
The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage fromthe Carnegie Corporation of New YorkandOutrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
