Politics
US, Iran to seek de-escalation in nuclear talks in Oman: regional official
- Tensions escalated after anti-government protests in Iran.
- Meeting moved to Oman as Iran demands bilateral talks.
- Iran wants talks to focus only on its nuclear programme.
The United States and Iran are due to hold talks in Oman on Friday after Tehran requested a change of venue to limit negotiations to its nuclear programme, a regional official said, with a build-up of US forces in the Middle East raising fears of a confrontation.
Iran wanted the meeting to take place in Oman as a continuation of previous rounds of talks held in the Gulf Arab country on its nuclear programme, asking for a change of location from Turkiye to avoid any expansion of the discussions to issues such as Tehran’s ballistic missiles, the regional official said.
Iran has said it will not make concessions on its formidable ballistic missile programme — one of the biggest in the Middle East — calling that a red line in negotiations.
Tehran, which says it replenished its stockpile of ballistic missiles since coming under attack from Israel last year, has warned that it will unleash its missiles to defend the itself if its security is under threat.
The regional official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran had since the beginning stressed that it would only discuss its nuclear programme, while Washington wanted other issues on the agenda.
Oil prices extended gains on Wednesday after the US shot down an Iranian drone and armed Iranian boats approached a US-flagged vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, rekindling fears of an escalation between Washington and Tehran.
Iran sought bilateral talks
US President Donald Trump has warned that “bad things” would probably happen if a deal could not be reached, ratcheting up pressure on Iran in a standoff that has led to mutual threats of air strikes and stirred fears of a wider war.
On Tuesday, the US military shot down an Iranian drone that “aggressively” approached the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea, the US military said, in an incident first reported by Reuters.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday: “We are negotiating with them right now.” He did not elaborate and declined to say where he expected talks to take place.
A source familiar with the situation said Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was due to take part in the talks, along with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi.
Ministers from several other countries in the region including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates had also been expected to attend, but a regional source told Reuters that Tehran wanted only bilateral talks with the US.
In June, the United States struck Iranian nuclear targets, joining in at the close of a 12-day Israeli bombing campaign.
More recently, the US navy built up forces in the region following protests against the government in Iran, the deadliest since the 1979 revolution.
Trump, who stopped short of carrying out threats to intervene, has since demanded nuclear concessions from Iran, sending a flotilla to its coast.
Iran’s leadership is increasingly worried a US strike could break its grip on power by driving an already enraged public back onto the streets, according to six current and former Iranian officials.
The priority of the diplomatic effort is to avoid conflict and de-escalate tension, a regional official told Reuters earlier.
Tanker incident
Iranian sources told Reuters last week that Trump had demanded three conditions for the resumption of talks: zero enrichment of uranium in Iran, limits on Tehran’s ballistic missile programme and an end to its support for regional proxies.
Iran has long said all three demands are unacceptable infringements of its sovereignty, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its rulers saw the ballistic missile programme, rather than uranium enrichment, as the bigger obstacle.
An Iranian official said there should not be preconditions for talks and that Iran was ready to show flexibility on uranium enrichment, which it says is for peaceful, not military purposes.
Since the US strikes in June, Tehran has said its uranium enrichment work has stopped.
In another incident on Tuesday, this one in the Strait of Hormuz, the US Central Command said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces had approached a US-flagged tanker at speed and threatened to board and seize it.
Maritime risk management group Vanguard said the Iranian boats ordered the tanker to stop its engine and prepare to be boarded. Instead, the tanker sped up and continued its voyage.
- Zelenskiy continuing Gulf visit after arriving in Riyadh on Thursday.
- Qatar says Doha, Kyiv have signed defence cooperation agreement.
- UAE, Ukraine earlier agreed to cooperate on security and defence.
Ukraine on Saturday agreed to cooperate on defence with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled to both countries amid escalating tensions in the region.
Qatar’s defence ministry said in a statement on Saturday that Doha and Kyiv have signed a defence cooperation agreement, which includes the exchange of expertise in countering missiles and unmanned aerial systems.
Zelenskiy had earlier been to the UAE and met President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the two countries agreed to cooperate in the fields of security and defence.
“Our teams will finalise the details,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app with reference to the UAE discussions.
Ukraine, which now has years of experience shooting down Russian drones and missiles, was close to clinching several security agreements to counter Iranian attacks, its foreign minister Andrii Sybiha had told Reuters on Friday.
The US-Israeli war on Iran has killed more than 2,000 people, upended global markets and spurred Iranian retaliatory strikes that have effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz and targeted several countries across the Gulf with missiles and drones.
Zelenskiy had first arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday where the two countries also signed an agreement on defence cooperation.
- After Oli’s arrest, supporters staged protest rallies.
- Oli had resigned after fatal protests last September.
- Police say Oli and Lekhak will be brought to court Sunday.
KATHMANDU: Nepal’s former prime minister, KP Sharma Oli, was arrested on Saturday as police investigate whether he was negligent in failing to prevent dozens of deaths in a crackdown on Gen Z-led anti-corruption protests last September, said officials.
Oli’s arrest, which his lawyer said was illegal and sparked protests by supporters who clashed with police, followed rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah’s swearing in as prime minister on Friday and a recommendation by a panel investigating violence during the protests that he should be prosecuted for negligence.
His former home minister, Ramesh Lekhak, was also arrested.
76 people were killed last September during a police crackdown and arson and violent unrest during the protests, which led to Oli’s resignation.
After his arrest on Saturday, supporters staged protest rallies and clashed with police who tried to stop them burning tyres near the prime minister’s office. Police lobbed a teargas shell and used batons to break up the protests, injuring one person, witnesses said.
Oli’s Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) called his arrest illegal and said it was an act of “revenge”. It demanded his immediate release and said more protests were planned for Sunday.
Shankar Pokhrel, a senior party official, told reporters that protest notes against the arrest would be handed to the government in all 77 districts of the country on Sunday.
Home Minister Sudan Gurung dismissed the criticism, saying on Facebook: “It is the beginning of justice. The country will take a new direction now.”
Election defeat
Oli was prime minister four times between 2015 and 2025 but never served a full five-year term. In 2020, he published a new political map including in it a small stretch of disputed land controlled by India, giving him a popularity boost in Nepal.
His popularity did not last, and he was beaten by Shah in his home constituency in an election this month, his second defeat since the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990. Anger over the deaths in September’s protests helped Shah’s Rastriya Swatantra Party win the election by a landslide.
The panel investigating last September’s violence held Oli and Lekhak responsible for not taking any action to stop hours of firing on the protesters by police.
Police spokesperson Om Adhikari said Oli and Lekhak would be brought to court on Sunday.
Oli, 74, who has had two kidney transplants, has been transferred to a hospital from the police office where he was first taken, witnesses said.
His lawyer, Tikaram Bhattarai, told Reuters that the arrest was unwarranted and would be challenged in the Supreme Court.
“They have said it (the arrest) is for investigation. It is illegal and improper because there is no risk of him fleeing or avoiding questioning,” he said.
Lekhak and his lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.
MINNEAPOLIS: Massive nationwide protests against US President Donald Trump are expected Saturday as millions of people vent fury over what they see as his authoritarian bent and other forms of cruel, law-trampling governance.
It is the third time in less than a year that Americans will take to the streets as part of a grassroots movement called “No Kings,” the most vocal and visual conduit for opposition to Trump since he began his second term in January 2025.
And now they have something new to fume over — the war in Iran that Trump launched alongside Israel, with ever-shifting goals and timelines for completion.
The first such nationwide protest day came in June on Trump’s 79th birthday and coincided with a military parade in Washington that he insisted on holding.
Several million people turned out, from New York to San Francisco and many places in between.
The second “No Kings” day in October drew an estimated seven million protesters, according to organisers.
The goal now is to bring out even more people on Saturday, as Trump’s approval rating is low at around 40% and midterm elections loom in November, when Trump’s Republicans could lose control of both chambers.
Just as Trump is worshipped by many in his “Make America Great Again” movement, on the other side of America’s wide political chasm, he is disliked or even loathed with equal passion.
Trump foes bemoan his penchant for ruling by executive decree, his use of the Justice Department to prosecute opponents, his embrace of fossil fuels and climate change denial even as the planet warms, his fight against racial and gender diversity programs, and his newfound taste for flexing US military power after campaigning as a man of peace.
“Since the last time we marched, this administration has dragged us deeper into war,” said Naveed Shah of Common Defence, a veterans association that belongs to the “No Kings” movement.
“At home, we’ve watched citizens killed in the streets by militarised forces. We’ve seen families torn apart and immigrant communities targeted. All of it done in the name of one man trying to rule like a king,” Shah said.
Springsteen in Minneapolis
Organisers say more than 3,000 rallies are planned, an increase from the last protest day, in major cities coast to coast and in suburbs and rural areas — even in the Alaskan town of Kotzebue, above the Arctic circle.
Minnesota will be a key focal point, returning to the limelight months after becoming ground zero for the national debate over Trump’s violent immigration crackdown.
Legendary rocker Bruce Springsteen, a fierce critic of the president, is scheduled to perform in St Paul, the capital of the northern state, his song “Streets of Minneapolis.”
It is a ballad he wrote and recorded in the space of 24 hours in memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Americans shot and killed by federal agents during protests in frigid January weather against Trump´s immigration offensive.
“Masked secret police terrorising our communities. An illegal, catastrophic war putting us in danger and driving up our costs. Attacks on our freedom of speech, our civil rights, our freedom to vote. Costs pushing families to the brink. Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant,” the “No Kings” movement said.
It said what began in 2025 as a simple day of defiance has mushroomed into a powerful movement of national resistance to the Trump administration.
Organisers say two-thirds of those who plan to rally Saturday do not live in big cities, which in America are often Democratic strongholds — a data point that is up sharply since the last protest.
“America is at an inflection point,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
“People are afraid, and they can’t afford basic necessities. It’s time the administration listened and helped them build a better life rather than stoking hate and fear.”
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