What to know as Iran and US set for nuclear talks in Oman

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran and the United States will hold talks Friday in Oman, their latest over Tehran's nuclear program after Israel launched a 12-day war on the country in June and the Islamic Republic launched a bloody crackdown on nationwide protests.

U.S. President Donald Trump has kept up pressure on Iran, suggesting America could attack Iran over the killing of peaceful demonstrators or 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-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to 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 dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, 2025, then gave a television interview the next day in 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, though no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program capable of reaching the continental U.S.

Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has mediated talks between Iranian 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 which Trump 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.

Israel launched what became a 12-day war on Iran in June that included the U.S. bombing Iranian nuclear sites. Iran later acknowledged in November that the attacks saw it halt 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 crackdown that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained by authorities.

Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly 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.

Iran was once one of the U.S.’s top allies in the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that 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 students overran 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 1980s saw 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. later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that 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. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Mideast that persist today.

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

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing a spending bill that ends a partial shutdown of the federal government in the Oval Office of the White House, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

FILE - In this photo released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, is welcomed by an unidentified Omani official, center, upon his arrival at Muscat, Oman, for negotiations with U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, as Iranian Ambassador to Oman Mousa Farhang walks at right, May 11, 2025. (Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP, File)

Special envoy Steve Witkoff, listens during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung agreed Friday to work together to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease global economic uncertainties caused by the war in the Middle East.

Their summit in Seoul came as U.S. President Donald Trump slammed allies for not supporting the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. Macron was making his first visit to South Korea since taking office in 2017, as part of an Asian tour that already has taken him to Japan.

Macron told Lee at the start of the meeting that the two countries can play a role in helping to stabilize the situation in the Middle East, including Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which has unleashed shock on global energy markets.

At a joint televised briefing afterward, Macron underscored the need for France and South Korea to cooperate to help reopen the strait and deescalate Middle East animosities, while Lee said the two affirmed “their resolves to cooperate to secure the safe shipping route in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The two leaders did not take questions and did not elaborate on how they would help reopen the strait — the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil usually passes.

“We need to clearly define, at the international level, the conditions for a process to ease the crisis and conflict in the Middle East,” Macron said. “We need to ensure that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.”

Lee said he and Macron agreed to expand cooperation in technology, energy and other areas. South Korean and French officials also signed agreements to cooperate on nuclear fuel supply chains, jointly invest in an offshore wind project in southern South Korea and to collaborate on critical minerals. South Korea has moved to increase output at its nuclear reactors to mitigate the energy crunch and Lee has also called for a faster transition to renewable energy, saying the war has exposed the country’s heavy reliance on fossil fuel imports.

Macron’s Asia trip comes as Trump has ramped up his frustration with allies. In a speech Wednesday, Trump said Americans “don’t need” the strait but the countries who do “must grab it and cherish it.”

In an earlier Easter event at the White House, Trump called for his allies in Asia and China to get involved in reopening the waterway.

“Let South Korea, you know, we only have 45,000 soldiers in harm’s way over there, right next to a nuclear force — let South Korea do it,” Trump said. “Let Japan do it. They get 90% of their oil from the strait. Let China do it.”

The United States stations about 28,000 troops in South Korea, not the 45,000 stated by Trump. The U.S. troops’ deployment in South Korea is meant to deter potential aggressions from North Korea.

Macron has said reopening the Strait of Hormuz through a military operation is unrealistic.

South Korean officials have said they are in contact with Washington on the issue and that Seoul isn’t considering paying Iran transit fees to secure fuel shipments through the strait.

French President Emmanuel Macron, front left, his wife Brigitte Macron, back center, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, front right, and his wife Kim Hea Kyung, right, attend the welcome ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je /Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, center, his wife Brigitte Macron, left, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, right, and his wife Kim Hea Kyung, second left, attend the welcome ceremony at the presidential Blue House in Seoul Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je /Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, second left, talks with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, second right, during their meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung during their meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, April 3, 2026. (Jung Yeon-je/Pool Photo via AP)