Chinese state media reported that after intensive indirect talks in Muscat on 6 February, Iran and the United States achieved a modest, but significant, phase of progress in efforts to revive nuclear negotiations. Neither delegation met face-to-face; Oman’s foreign minister, Badr, acted as intermediary, relaying core proposals, strategic concerns and policy positions between the two sides. The atmosphere in the negotiating room was described as tense but efficient, and both sides agreed on one key objective: to continue talking.
Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi was due to brief journalists shortly after the session to outline the hours-long exchange and next steps, underscoring Tehran’s intent to project transparency about the process. The use of back-channel, mediated transmissions of proposals rather than direct contact reflects persistent distrust, but also a pragmatic appetite to preserve diplomatic space without the political theatre that can accompany public encounters.
This latest episode sits atop a long and fractured history: the 2015 JCPOA offered robust limits on Iran’s fuel-cycle activities in exchange for sanctions relief, only for Washington to withdraw in 2018 and Tehran to resume higher levels of enrichment. Successive efforts to restore that architecture have stalled and sputtered, with negotiations repeatedly collapsing over sequencing, verification and the scale of sanctions relief. The Muscat talks do not solve those technical and political knots, but keeping channels open reduces the near-term risk of a breakdown that could accelerate Iran’s nuclear progress or regional escalation.
The practical stakes are high. For Washington, the core questions remain how to secure verifiable limits on uranium enrichment and inspections while managing domestic political constraints and allied concerns. For Tehran, negotiators seek meaningful sanctions relief and guarantees that any deal will endure beyond short political cycles. Regional actors — notably Israel and Gulf states — will be watching closely, since progress or setback in these talks affects their security calculations and could reshape deterrence across the Middle East.
Major points of contention are predictable: sequencing of sanctions relief versus nuclear rollback, the scope and tempo of International Atomic Energy Agency access, and legal mechanisms to lock in commitments. Both governments face internal hurdles that narrow negotiators’ room for manoeuvre; Iranian hardliners and U.S. political opponents can both make concessions politically costly. That structural difficulty helps explain the cautious, mediated format chosen in Muscat.
What comes next is likely to be incremental. A public briefing by Iran’s foreign minister will set expectations and may signal areas of compromise, but further rounds of indirect exchanges seem probable before any textable agreement surfaces. Oman’s role as a discreet intermediary underlines a continuing Gulf interest in preventing military escalation, and European or regional partners could be asked to help broker technical fixes or confidence-building steps.
The Muscat session is not a breakthrough but it is consequential: it preserves diplomatic breathing room and keeps the possibility of a negotiated rollback alive. Whether that breathing room translates into a credible, verifiable and durable agreement depends on whether negotiators can bridge technical gaps while surviving domestic political pressures on both sides.