DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United States and Iran will hold their next round of nuclear talks Thursday in Geneva, a facilitator said Sunday, as the Islamic Republic faces both the threat of a U.S. military strike and new protests at home.
Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, confirmed the talks. Oman previously hosted the indirect talks on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and facilitated the latest round in Geneva last week.
There was no immediate comment from the Trump administration, which has built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades as it pushes its longtime adversary for concessions on its nuclear program and more.
Shortly before Oman's announcement, Iran's top diplomat, Abbas Araghchi, told CBS in an interview that he expected to meet U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Geneva on Thursday, and said a “good chance” remained for a diplomatic solution on the nuclear issue.
Washington awaits a proposed deal that Araghchi has said would be ready to share within days, and the foreign minster told CBS that Iran was still working on the draft proposal.
The nuclear issue, he added, is the only matter being discussed — even though both the United States and Israel also want to address Iran's missile program and its support for armed proxies in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump warned on Friday that limited strikes against Iran are possible, and both Iran and the U.S. have signaled they are prepared for war if the talks on Tehran’s nuclear program fail.
Minutes after Oman’s confirmation of the talks, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on social media that negotiations had involved “the exchange of practical proposals and yielded encouraging signals,” but added that Tehran has "made all necessary preparations for any potential scenario.”
The U.S. has said Iran cannot have nuclear weapons or the capacity to build them and that it cannot enrich uranium. Araghchi, however, told CBS that Iran has the right to enrich uranium.
On Friday, he said his U.S. counterparts had not asked for zero enrichment as part of the latest round of talks, which is not what U.S. officials have said publicly. He also said talks focused on how to ensure that Iran's nuclear program, including enrichment, "will remain peaceful forever." He said that in return, Iran will implement confidence-building measures in exchange for relief on economic sanctions.
Tehran has long insisted that any negotiations should only focus on its nuclear program, and has refused to discuss wider U.S. and Israeli demands that it scale back its missile program and sever ties to armed groups.
Although Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful, the U.S. and others suspect it is aimed at eventually developing weapons. Iran says it hasn’t been enriching uranium since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June.
At that time, Trump said the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear sites, but the exact damage is unknown because Tehran has barred international inspectors.
Meanwhile, Araghchi asserted to CBS that “we have a very good capability of missiles, and now we are even in a better situation" than before the strikes in June.
Nuclear talks had been deadlocked for years after Trump’s decision in 2018 to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
Confirmation of new talks came as new anti-government protests began in Iran, according to witnesses, as university students in Tehran and another city demonstrated around memorials for thousands of people killed in a crackdown on previous nationwide demonstrations about six weeks ago.
Iran’s state news agency said students protested at five universities in the capital, Tehran, and one in the city of Mashhad on Sunday. The scattered protests erupted Saturday at universities following 40-day memorials for people killed in January during anti-government rallies.
Videos posted on social media appeared to show confrontations at two universities between government supporters and anti-government protesters, with some chanting “Death to dictator.”
Iran’s government has not commented on the latest protests.
Many Iranians have held ceremonies marking the traditional 40-day mourning period in the past week. Most of the protesters are believed to have been killed around Jan. 8 and 9, according to activists tracking the situation.
Iranians across the country are still reeling with shock, grief and fear after the earlier protests were crushed by the deadliest crackdown ever seen under the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands are believed to have been arrested.
Although the crackdown tamped down the largest protests, smaller ones are still occurring, according to protesters and videos shared on social media.
During the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the shah and brought the Islamic Republic to power, 40-day memorials for slain protesters often turned into rallies that security forces tried to crush, causing new deaths. Those were then marked 40 days later, with new protests.
Posts on social media Saturday and Sunday have alleged that security forces tried to restrict people from attending some 40-day ceremonies.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says at least 7,015 people were killed in the previous protests and crackdown, including 214 government forces. The group has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists there to verify deaths.
The death toll continues to rise as the group crosschecks information despite disrupted communication with those inside the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s government offered its only death toll from the previous protests on Jan. 21, saying 3,117 people were killed. Iran’s theocracy in the past has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the death toll, given authorities have disrupted internet access and international calls in Iran.
Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Vehicles drive by the Azadi (Freedom) monument in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026.(AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Pedestrians walk past a billboard depicting a U.S. aircraft carrier with damaged fighter jets on its deck and a sign in Farsi and English reading, "If you sow the wind, you'll reap the whirlwind," at Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) Square in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Feb. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff was reelected Tuesday to a second term, holding a key seat for Democrats by defeating Republican Rep. Mike Collins in a race that catapulted the Senate’s youngest member to the forefront of his party’s national stars as it looks to stymie President Donald Trump in his final White House years.
Ossoff, 39, began the cycle as a top Republican target and the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump carried in 2024. But from the start, the senator ran as an aggressive Trump critic, with blistering critiques of “a failed president” that became a staple of voters’ social media feeds across the country.
He became a fundraising juggernaut, pulling in more than $100 million and sparking speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid to succeed the man he said has used the Oval Office to enrich himself and damage the U.S. political and economic system.
Ossoff addressed supporters Tuesday night and reiterated his key talking points that the Trump administration is corrupt and that everyday Americans were falling behind.
“The American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the failed lame duck president Donald J. Trump," he said. He added: “Together, we’ve affirmed that our task is not just to contain one president’s wickedness, but to heal the brokenness beneath."
For Trump, Ossoff’s victory is a notably bitter confirmation of his decline toward lame duck status. Trump endorsed Collins for the Republican nomination in a state where the president anchored his false claims that his 2020 defeat was rigged.
But the two-term congressman, first elected echoing Trump’s election lies, never found momentum. He struggled to raise money, navigate his alliance with the president and defend against his ties to white nationalists and an unresolved House ethics investigation.
Collins told supporters Tuesday night that it had been an honor to serve under Trump, who he called the best president of his lifetime. “The results may not be what we wanted tonight, but y’all, that’s OK,” he said.
It had been a blistering campaign with Ossoff hammering Collins repeatedly as a “bigot,” emphasizing the congressman’s past social media posts, his onetime chief of staff’s communications with white supremacists and white nationalist advocacy from Collins’ son-in-law.
“If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club,” the senator said, referring to the late civil rights icon’s role in Bloody Sunday and the Voting Rights March in 1965.
Collins insisted he had always denounced racism and antisemitism, but the onslaught left him largely unable to land counterattacks that Ossoff was too liberal for Georgia.
“No one has ever asked or held Jon Ossoff accountable for any of his votes,” Collins said, accusing the senator of supporting open borders, allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports, and voting “100% of the time with Bernie Sanders,” the democratic socialist senator from Vermont.
Most Georgia voters, about two-thirds, say Ossoff is not “too extreme,” according to The AP Voter Poll. That included most independents and about 3 in 10 Republicans.
Ossoff was first elected in 2020, defeating Republican Sen. David Perdue in a runoff held the day before Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol with hopes of stopping Democrat Joe Biden’s certification as president-elect. Ossoff’s fellow Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock, won a special election at the same time, both breaking historical barriers: Warnock as Georgia’s first Black senator, Ossoff as its first Jewish senator.
Warnock won reelection in 2022 with a campaign targeted more at Georgia’s moderate swing voters, reflecting the difference for a Democratic senator running for reelection with Biden in the White House as opposed to Trump. Still, Ossoff’s unabashedly aggressive approach initially struck some Democrats as a gamble. It quickly became a model, with Ossoff holding carefully produced rallies where he delivered his withering critiques of the president as young aides quickly cut video clips that were distributed online in real time.
Ossoff mocked “Prince Don Jr.,” Eric Trump and Jared Kushner, the president’s sons and son-in-law, for their international business deals. The senator called for ending the Iran war, rolling back many of Trump’s tax cuts, and blasted the president’s tariffs. He highlighted his stalled legislative proposal to bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks and pitched a constitutional amendment to limit corporate money in campaigns.
The senator also carefully navigated the politics of Israel, saying he values Israel’s security and “the lives of innocent Palestinians.” He has voted for some U.S. military aid to Israel and against other munitions grants. Ossoff said the Israeli military has violated international standards of warfare in Gaza but avoided the question of whether Israel is committing genocide — a charge levied by some on the Democrats’ left flank. Ossoff said that’s a matter for the International Criminal Court to decide.
Ossoff also leveraged the work he’s done for constituents in Georgia, earning endorsements from some local Republican officials in the historically conservative state who said he’s been an effective advocate for hurricane relief, infrastructure investments and other federal funding.
“This is what small men like Donald Trump and Mike Collins will never understand,” Ossoff said as he campaigned, “that our national greatness flows not through our blood or our genes, but through our ideas and our aspirations and our care for one another.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens speaks during an election night event for Democratic Senate candidate Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
People watch election results come in at an election night event for Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins speaks to members of the media during a campaign event on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
A supporter of Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff holds a sign during a campaign event on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Douglasville, Georgia. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Georgia U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins speaks to members of the media during a campaign event on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Atlanta, Georgia. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff speaks during a campaign event on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Douglasville, Georgia. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
