US-Iran talks live: FM Araghchi says latest round of talks ‘a good start’

February 6, 2026
Jillian Kestler-D'Amours and Nils Adler

• Iran says indirect talks between US and Iranian officials have ended in Oman after weeks of escalating tensions and fears of a military confrontation between the two countries.
• Iran’s Foreign Ministry says the talks will continue, but FM Abbas Araghchi said their future will depend on discussions in various capitals.
• A short time after talks ended, the US placed new sanctions on individuals, companies and ships it says are linked to Iran’s oil trade.
• An Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson says the goal of the meeting was to reach “a fair, mutually satisfactory, and honourable agreement regarding the nuclear issue”.

More on US’s latest Iran sanctions

As we reported a short while ago, the US announced new sanctions on Iranian entities, ships, and two individuals, waiting only about an hour after the indirect talks in Oman ended.
The State Department said in a news release that the White House imposed sanctions on Iranian oil firms and ships as they were “connected to the illicit trade” and “generated revenue that the regime uses to conduct its malign activities”.
“Instead of investing in the welfare of its own people and crumbling infrastructure, the Iranian regime continues to fund destabilising activities around the world and step up its repression inside Iran,” it said.
 

Israel wants ‘nuclear supremacy and military supremacy in the Middle East’

Both the US and Iran are genuinely trying to see whether there is any ground for a “mutual compromise” in the latest round of negotiations, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former Iranian nuclear negotiator, has told Al Jazeera.
“I really believe there is a very difficult situation ahead, because the issue is not whether the Iranian nuclear programme would remain peaceful or not; the real issue is about the true Israeli red lines,” he said, speaking from Amsterdam.
He explained that those include nuclear supremacy and military supremacy in the Middle East.
“Iran has crossed these two red lines; first of all, Iran has the capability to build a nuclear bomb if it decides to; second, when Iran was attacked, it was able to retaliate and attack Israel,” he said.
“The best solution would be a multilateral nuclear enrichment facility between Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt and other Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, internationally supervised by the IAEA (The International Atomic Energy Agency),” he concluded.
 

Trump wants a deal as military options remain on the table

Alan Fisher
So far, everything I hear from the White House indicates that Trump wants to do a deal.
He would like a deal. And he’s aware of the criticism of the first Iran nuclear deal, which didn’t discuss Iran’s regional allies, didn’t discuss ballistic missiles and didn’t discuss how they deal with internal dissent.
Those are things that the Trump administration would like to deal with.
The timing of the next talks remains unclear. The two sides are still talking, which is seen as a positive sign and suggests there could be another meeting.
But all of this is happening against the backdrop of a big US military buildup in the Gulf. Aircraft carriers and multiple vessels are in position, though it is not enough to launch a full-scale invasion of Iran.
US officials are consulting with Gulf partners and others in the region to plan contingencies, because those nations are asking, “If you do something that topples the regime, we have to know what happens next. We have to have a plan B.”